New Festival From Big Chill Founders

Brought to you by a couple of the creative minds behind the original Big Chill festival, the Nova festival, situated mid-way between London and Brighton in the south of England, launches this weekend (July 5th – 8th).

With a line-up similar in spirit to the original Big Chill, and a 5000-capacity limit placed on attendance, it could plug the gap for an annual boutique festie in the south of England catering for the thirtysomething festival-goer.
 
Crazy P (pictured), Ghostpoet, Phenomenal Handclap Band, Fink, Speech Debelle, Jessie Ware and Don Letts are just some of the acts performing on the Valley Stage, whilst there will be DJ sets from Krystal Klear, DJ Food, Soul Jazz Soundsystem, Tim 'Love' Lee, Mixmaster Morris, JFB, DJ Shepdog, and original Big Chill co-creator Pete Lawrence, amongst many others.
 
Nova is the creation of two former Big Chill producers, Katrina Larkin and Victoria Burns. Larkin was the creative tour de force of the Big Chill, which she left in 2009, and Victoria was responsible for programming the fringe entertainment. Together they've been hatching a plan to create Nova since they became friends some 17 years ago.
 
The location – Bignor Park – is reportedly a beautiful jaw-dropping estate backing onto the rolling South Downs in the Sussex countryside.

As well as installations and exclusive woodland screenings (by Rankin and Hirst), there will be crazy golf, the Adventureland Golf course, created and curated by Doug Fishbone (famous for filling Trafalgar Square with bananas in the name of art). He's invited friends Jake Chapman and David Shrigley among others to contribute sculptures to grace each hole of the course, the pay as-you-putt proceeds will go to the Tahiti rehabilitation trust fund that Larkin and Burns avidly raise monies for.
 
So what inspires someone to grow a huge festival (the Big Chill), then start all over again? Says Larkin: "A huge desire to continue working with the team that we've worked with forever, to do something new and to not lose control, something to keep that becomes part of our life, because we love it."
 
www.novafestival.co.uk