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Last update Dec 2004 .

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24-26th July 1970
Ecclesden Common.

Worthing

"Fairground"- The Phun City Inflatable.


    The blow up tent Spike mentioned in the View from the mud section , was an inflatable dome myself and friends took to festivals (free and otherwise) between 1969 and 1972. It was 50 ft high and 100 ft across and with a fair wind could get 1000 good folk inside.

    Festival organisers liked having us on site because most of them had a music curfew on stage of 11 ish but we could play, being "inside", all night. The dome , called FairGround, had a team of 25 unpaid but happy labourers who all played some instrument or other and who lived all summer on the road with the dome: they spent most winters mending it !
    I am glad you have memories of the light show and particularly flattered that you describe it as a "different universe" inside. Apart from a lot of hard work that went into producing interesting all night gigs, the lightshow was designed by Phil Vaughn and Roger Dainton: their main claim to fame is their design and construction of the neon sculpture over the Hayward Galley, built at that time and still going strong today.

The Fairground dome inflated © John Bloomfield

Quicktime v ideo of the dome being inflated ( 2.5mg)
   


    The machinery was built to amazingly tough standards by Peter Wynne Willson, founder of WWG, the leading lighting innovation company of today: it seems old hippies don't even fade away......by the way, instead of payment, the crew played a two hour set every night . Their band name was Cosmic Wreckage: no record deal was ever forthcoming.

John Bloomfield

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Big thanks to Keiran McCann , Celia Bouquet ,Rich Deakin and Phil Jones for the donation of the press articles that have enabled us to construct this site and to Ronald Jensen and Dicky Howett for the great photographs.

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