THIS year’s Greenbelt Festival will include a “No Fly Zone”: an area that both speakers can join by online video call, and anyone unable to attend in person can log in to, to get “the Greenbelt experience”.
Greenbelt’s Creative Director, Paul Northup, said: “We’re thrilled to be able to platform writers and speakers from around the world at Greenbelt this year without needing to fly them all to the fields — helping our perspective to remain global, at the same time as not costing the earth. We’re also proud to be able to offer a taste of the festival online to all those unable to be with us in person. We hope that the programme we’ve put together enables those online to feel genuinely part of the community and its concerns over the weekend.”
Each day, the poet and theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama will host a live show from the No Fly Zone in the style of his podcast Poetry Unbound (Features, 28 March). Martyn Joseph will have a songwriter circle show with international guests and live performers. The slam-poetry champion Harry Baker will have a daily slot, and the novelists Marilynne Robinson and Tim Winton, and the philosopher and environmental activist Dougald Hine, from Sweden, will also be appearing.
Another speaker will be Daoud Nassar, the director of the Tent of Nations, a Christian family farm among the Bethlehem hills in the West Bank surrounded by five Israeli settlements. In spite of the hostility that they experience, Mr Nassar said that he wanted to impart a message of hope and that he was looking forward to making the most of the No Fly Zone. “This technology is a blessing,” he said. “It’s making it easier, saving resources, and gives us the opportunity to reach out to people and ask them to pray for us.”
Greenbelt takes place at Boughton House, in Northamptonshire, 21-24 August. Online access to the No Fly Zone venue costs £35 for the duration of the festival. greenbelt.org.uk
