Trading sunshine: SolarAid at The Big Chill Festival 2010

SolarAid will once again be spreading some sunshine at The Big Chill Festival in August. A star team of volunteers will be educating and entertaining Big Chill festival-goers around the issues of SolarAid's work, as well as offering an innovative and clean way to charge mobile phones via our 'Solar Rollers'.

On the top of the hill in The Enchanted Garden, our Sun Hut will provide festival-goers with insight into our projects in Africa where we're using solar energy as a solution to world poverty and climate change. The Sun Hut will also host The SolarAid Sign Up, where in return for joining the SolarAid mailing list, festival-goers will be entered into an hourly raffle of Big Chill Label merchandise and other ethical goodies.

The SolarAid Buskers' Stage
Positioned alongside the Sun Hut, this year's solar-powered SolarAid Buskers' Stage has an incredible selection of new music, undiscovered gems and Big Chill favourites, as well as opportunities for festival-goers to get on stage and perform on the greenest stage at the festival.

The Big Chill Festival site 2009.

Between noon and 1pm, from Friday through to Sunday there will be an open performance slot for musicians and performers on the SolarAid Buskers' Stage in the Chillers' Open Busking Sessions. Names will be selected on a first come, first served basis and participants will be allowed to perform a few songs each.

Phone charging
In 2009 SolarAid pioneered a unique piece of technology; a compact, fully-portable, solar-powered charging system for mobile phones - The Solar Roller. As the quirky name and design suggest (see below), the Solar Roller does what it says on the tin. We developed this innovative product because we wanted a phone charging solution that did not rely on fossil fuel-guzzling generators. We also saw an opportunity to demonstrate to festival-goers that solar power does work, even in the UK.


The Solar Roller - volunteers charge phones at last year's festival.

The Solar Roller provides off-grid, clean power on wheels. It is literally solar on the move and is the creative answer to a problem that so many festival-goers know well; being in the middle of a field with a dead phone battery.

The line-up
Shaping up to be the event of the summer The Big Chill 2010 has a musical line-up which boasts Massive Attack, M.I.A., Lily Allen, Thom Yorke, Roots Manuva, Gregory Isaacs, Kruder & Dorfmeister, Kelis, Plan B, Roy Ayers and Bonobo (to name but a few), an arts programme featuring renowned artist Spencer Tunick and Tate Britain's ground-breaking Rude Britannia exhibition, as well as much, much more.

Tickets are on sale now - please visit www.bigchill.net/festival for more info.

Hope to see you there.

The SolarAid team