Boom Town: The Might & Magic Of Its Six Districts

2012 saw Boom Town’s instatement as a fully fledged city. With the festival itself and its enthusiastic audience growing massively since its inception, the number of mini venues and hidden gems has risen exponentially.

With the city complex now including a massive six districts, over 30 shops, as well as buildings and residential houses stop their usual trading for 4 days. A certain madness overcomes them as the fair comes into to town. With so much to see and do, we’ve put together a few brief highlights, to whet your appetite for the forthcoming instalment of Boom Town!

Chinatown

A sea of colourful flags and dancing dragons holds a series of mysterious secrets inside. There is the seedy Prawnucopia Love Lounge for starters, as well as Madame Electrifie’s Laundry service, a grubby, rundown, chinese ghetto themed Laundromat which hosts the best in electro swing, hip hop, ghettofunk and breaks. Plus there is Alan’s Happy Ending Cinema, which will show only the finest in Chinese films, and provides a stunning backdrop as the evenings draw in.

Latin Quarter

New for this year is the Latin quarter. A number of tropical music clubs can be found here, as well as the Slap Happy Boutique which brings its own unique and at times ludicrous party skills to the table. El Espectaculo Esqueleto features freaky stage shows, musical mayhem, and ridiculous makeup. Add to that a Day of the Dead themed bar, and you’ve got one extraordinary Latin experience lined up.

Mayfair Avenue

Next up, and only accessible through a magic carpet ride (a one of a kind purpose built ski slope) you enter the pompous, glitzy Mayfair Avenue. Diamond encrusted street lamps and gold plated curb stone adorn the streets, as popular haunts The Bank, and Funkington Manor return in full effect. Expect a party filled with incorrigible madcap frivolity under extended opening hours as outrage and scandal become par for the course. The Park hotel is a a pampering paradise, the ideal solution to the frenetic surroundings in which it lies. Once you're done there, the Bumper Roller Disco provides skates to hire and amazing music to lose yourself in.

Town Centre

Overlooking proceedings, and pertaining to hold some sort of order over Boom Town is the Town Centre. The Town Centre is home to the Luna Cinema, where you are encouraged to sit in one of the ready parked vehicles and enjoy live mind-blowing performances from VJs, or simply watch the odd movie. At the heart of the community is the Bad Apple Bar. The oldest building in the city will be taken over by various crews over the weekend, each bringing their own enjoyable bad attitudes to the party. Town Hall also holds representatives from all of the districts, so expect to find a small flavour from every part of the city in its walls.

Oldtown

Oldtown hosts a thriving pirate community, and is crammed full of rum soaked macabre bars and sights. Expect to a enjoy a strictly pre 60’s music policy, featuring a whole host of jazz, latin, blues, country and rockabilly, accompanied a nice glass of sarsaparilla or two. Other highlights in the district include 19th century salons, a Big Love Chapel, and A Gypsy Disco crammed with an automated freak show, and more carnival attractions than you can shake a wooden leg at. Jugglers, dancers and delinquents line the streets, showing off both their talents and lunacy.

Nearby liest The Halfway Woods, which hosts one of the largest PsyTrance shindigs in the country, as well as a chilled out dub reggae funk and soul area called the Floating Lotus. Don’t be alarmed if you come across a rapping violinist performing alongside a welsh choir and and a beatboxer! This is the sort of thing you’ll come to expect in Boom Town.

Downtown

Next stop is the notorious Downtown District, featuring delights such as Charlie Brown’s Casino, a home to gang members and hoodlums all up to no good. The accurately named Old School Garage does just that, and plays the best in old skool garage, hidden away so you can let your inhibitions go and wholeheartedly let your hair down to some of the best tracks in the scene from past and present. The ASBO Disco is also on hand to bring to you the best in British Bass Music.

All of a sudden you’ll be met by Spaceport, formerly a back street bar but now a watering hole inhabited by beings from another dimension. This anomaly in the city plays host to all sorts of sci fi goodness, and will transport you elsewhere if only for a moment.

Back into the realms of Downtown, and we have the Prohibition Den, filled with the finest moonshine, combined with a breakcore music policy to baffle your senses. The Leisure Centre is home to a bespoke Funktion One sound system, and is soundtracked by an impressive array of the most cutting edge music in existence.

With so much more on offer at this years festival, we could barely scratch the surface. It plainly has to be experienced to be believed. With so much thought and creativity going into this years Boom Town, it genuinely stands way out from the crowd, and is a firm favourite of so many festival goers across the country.

For more information about Boom Town click here