Blissfields Festival and Born Free Foundation "Walk On The Wild Side" in 2014

Blissfields Festival and Born Free Foundation "Walk On The Wild Side" in 2014/span>

Blissfields are pleased to announce its collaboration with the Born Free Foundation for 2014. The foundation will be supporting the event’s “Walk On The Wild Side” theme by hosting lectures, encouraging fundraising for an Ethiopian sanctuary, and integrating immersive new areas to the festival. 

Event organizer Paul Bliss’ mother was a founding member of the Born Free Foundation, so it’s with tremendous personal pleasure this year the collaboration has been confirmed. While Blissfields remind fans the theme this year is one of fun and celebration, the messages of the foundation will be integrated into the festival’s ethos, which reflects a growing global concern for wildlife conservation.

Today in London, fifty heads of state will attend a summit hosted by David Cameron, which will be attended by Prince Charles, with the aim to halt surging demand for illegal elephant and rhino products. This matter, along with various other topics high on the foundation’s agenda will no doubt be at the core of many talks and lectures they will present at Blissfields, programmed to spark debate in the new Amoeba To Zebra area.

This area will also host talks on wider science topics and incorporate younger Blissfieldians, and their families, as well as older ticket holders. The goal is to create an all-encompassing area where people can interact, have fun, and learn more about the world around them.

The program of speakers will be announced later in 2014.

Blissfields

The British festival is renowned for being a place to leave inhibitions at the door, but for their summer 2014 event Blissfields organisers are inviting you to take a leap even further into the great beyond, into the great YOU. Explore the side of yourself that doesn't usually run free, the mysterious side that you’d nearly forgotten was there and maybe didn't even know existed. To walk on the wild side is about finding your spirit animal, your Patronus, and pace with them hand in hand, momentarily to explore, and be as one with the world and it's nature.

Festival co-founder Melanie Bliss woke up in the wee small hours of a July morning, just after Blissfields 2013, with a vision of drag queens and animals running wild, as an earthy bass-line trembled amid the trees of the festival, an echoing whisper, a chorus of “do de-do, de-do, du, de do-doo …". It was an electrifying stampede, a beautiful mess! And so the theme was born. Made all the more poignant by the recent passing of Lou Reed, 2014 will be a celebration of living life to the fullest, to look at the world with innocence and a sense of excitement.

Headliner’s for this summer 2014 will be announced in a few weeks. The 4,000 ticket capacity Hampshire event last year celebrated performances from Bastille, Mystery Jets, Sam Smith, The Staves, Marika Hackman, Theme Park, Public Service Broadcasting, Bondax, Drenge and many other live acts, DJs and performers. It also saw the launch of a Real Ale Festival and Independent Film Festival, both of which return in 2014, making Blissfields one of the country’s most impeccably programmed intimate festivals.

Last year's official Blissfields film, celebrating the weekend, can be found on YouTube here.

Tickets last year sold out in record time, with 2014 ones going even faster. They’re available now via www.blissfields.co.uk.