Scenographies for a City – Festival
BBK Live is one of the most important music festivals in Spain, attracting thousands of people every year. The festival is held at Kobetamendi, a small mounty area just outside of Bilbao. During three days, internationally renowned and local artists perform on various open-air stages, create a unique experience that blends music and culture.
Since 2015, Zuloark has been collaborating with Last Tour as the art director in the design and construction of several of BBK Live’s party infrastructures and stage designs. Our work on the festival continuously for several years has allowed us to delve into more efficient and impactful circular strategies while experimentation helped develop research about the magic and mystery of designing the party scenes. Here are some of the lessons learned during our collaboration:
The City – Festival
We contribute to thinking about a festival-city that lasts three days, through which 150,000 people pass, making efficient management of resources, both material, landscape, and human. We think that the festival-city is a city also during the moments of assembly, dismantling, and the moments in which the landscape remains untouched.
Material Circularity
We reuse raw materials that serve as infrastructure for the scenographies, which can be adapted each year to different finishes and concepts. Our designs are based on “sustainable” materials such as wood, and we force the use of “uncut” pieces to encourage recycling.
Natural Environment
The festival takes place in a privileged natural environment, and all of Zuloark’s work is based on the relationship with the environment, placing value on the context and using it as a support for many of the stage designs. In addition, we incorporate elements of plant waste obtained from maintenance and pruning work during the year and other natural supports as material.
Scenes for the Party
The process of creating a festival transforms the typical urban structures into elaborate set designs. We incorporate concepts such as mystery, drama, and collective experience into all our designs, transforming these structures into exceptional supports. Additionally, technical infrastructures of the festival are being repurposed: using them as a foundation, we parasitize them with new elements, turning them into scenographies for our set designs.
Co-designing the “Camping”
One of the fundamental works developed by Zuloark for the festival is the design of the working environment of the teams with which it collaborates. The “Camping” formed by a very extensive network of agents, among which are the people in charge of Last Tour and all the collaborators with whom the designs are thought and built. A camping that lasts from the beginning of the conceptual phase to the dismantling of the festival’s infrastructures and that sometimes extends to give third lives to the materials in other stage designs.
Awards
Bilbao BBK Live festival has been recognized by B Corp as a festival that meets the highest social and environmental standards by putting the planet at the center of its strategy to leave a positive impact on it.
In 2019, Basoa stage of Bilbao BBK Live was the winner of ‘Festival Of The Future Awards’.
Also, in 2020 Bilbao BBK Live was awarded with “Best Major Festival powered by Sgae” and “Best Infrastructure” at the Iberian Festival Awards 2020.
