THE HAÇIENDA HOUSE PARTY IV Haçienda Classical featuring Graeme Park, the Manchester Camerata Orchestra and special guests return for two socially distanced and livestream events during the May Bank Holiday weekend, throwing a lifeline to around 400 members of production crew, performing artists and musicians during the COVID-19 pandemic. TPi’s Jacob Waite reports...
Now in its sixth year, Haçienda Classical sees orchestral renditions of heritage Haçienda club tracks performed on stage with experimental orchestra, Manchester Camerata. As beneficiaries of the UK government’s Culture Recovery Fund (CRF), the event took place at Victoria Warehouse over the May Bank Holiday weekend with a socially distanced crowd of 123 people and a livestream audience donning their gladrags to witness a stellar line up of Graeme Park, DJ Paulette and Peter Hook take to the stage, with follow-up Sunday performances by Orbital Live, Jon Dasilva, A Guy Called Gerald Live and Justin Robertson. “We’ve done a lot of charity livestreams over the course of the lockdown but an in-person and livestream event is a great project for the DCMS and Arts Council England to invest in,” Event Producer, Matt Jones said, having played a key role in the successful grant application. “I started out with a budget for a fictitious show to become fact, which engulfed rehearsals, two streaming events with a live audience if possible, depending on the
lockdown restrictions. We received the funding in April, so there was a fast turnaround time between planning and execution of the event.” With the event buoyed by the CRF grant, the devil was now in the detail. “By no means was this a profit-making experience; the DCMS and Arts Council England have invested in the fact that this particular show would not have been possible without their support, providing us with a template for this show for the rest of the year.” The vendor roster comprised familiar suppliers in Lite Alternative, Wigwam, and Colour Sound Experiment for video. This year, Concept Staging was brought in to provide a bespoke 64ft by 70ft staging structure, which took up two thirds of the venue space, to account for distancing of the performing artists and musicians from an in-person audience. Victoria Warehouse liaised with the local authority regarding licencing. Tickets were made available in groups of six, with social distancing rules and sanitiser stations positioned around the site. One-way systems were 38
