Springfestival Photo Diary

Featured Photo Diary

Springfestival Photo Diary

One of Europe's finest summer festivals invited The End to curate a venue, and join them for all the fun...

The start of the journey – at Liverpool Street station, setting off for Austria. Springfestival, Austria’s biggest festival for electronic art and music, is held every year in Graz, in the south east of the country. As well as being famous for the festival, Graz is also the birthplace of Arnold Schwarzenegger – they even have a museum devoted to him.

We touch down in the sleepy city of Graz. The festival is held over five days in venues all over the city – including a former 16th century prison set on top of a mountain in the city centre, the city’s museum for contemporary art, and an enormous cave cathedral carved out of the Schlossberg hillside.

The festival had plenty of daytime attractions including this marvellous exhibition of classic synths. This exhibition was comprised of analogue synthesizers, beatboxes and drum machines, and analogue step-sequencers that dated from 1972 to 1982. Visitors were encouraged to make our own arrangements, which you could listen to through headphones, or for the braver wannabe producers, out loud through the PA.

The Kunsthaus was built as part of the European Capital of Culture celebrations in 2003. Its exhibition program specialises in contemporary art in all forms - architecture, design, new media, internet art, film, photography. The BIX Facade shown here is made of a giant screen, and can be used for installations.

For Springfestival, video artist Mox used The BIX Façade to present an audio-visual performance composed by two award-winning pianists, Francesco Tristano and Kelvin Sholar, accompanied by visuals inspired by the building’s architecture.

The entertainment in the evenings ranged from hip hop to techno, with over 250 artists including Tayo (pictured), hosting a Cool and Deadly party with Buraka Som Sistema and Caspa; Exit Records vs Integral Records with Fabio, D-Bridge, Bryan Gee, and MC LowQui (pictured); and a Chicago house special with Robert Owens and Larry Heard.

End Favourites Chew The Fat! programmed PPC on Saturday night with Hannah Holland (pictured), Dub Pistols, Atomic Hooligan and CTF resident Kid Blue.

This is the breathtaking cliffside entrance to Dom im Berg, where The End’s party was housed on Saturday night. Carved out of the Schlossberg hillside in the heart of the old town, the Dom is an amazing venue.

This is the corridor through the cave leading to the main room and on to the second room. We brought DJ Marky, Stamina MC, Gilles Peterson, Bushwacka and Mr C with us for the ride.

The Graz crowd were fantastic, with a massive enthusiasm for the music and a real open mind – not blinking an eyelid as Marky’s drum & bass went straight into Bushwacka!’s house and techno.

Here’s Marky doing his famous upside down deck scratching.

And Stamina looking sheepish about something!

Gilles Peterson’s doing his best crooner impersonation…

And Mr C salutes the crowd.

We also managed to squeeze in a look at some of Springfestival’s other fantastic venues. This is Kasematten, the venue set in an ancient prison, and the Electronic Beats opening concert with The Streets, Roni Size and Roisin Murphy.