Arcadia teases that a new “inspiring piece” is in the works

Arcadia co-founder Bertie Cole has revealed that “something new is in the works”, during conversations surrounding Arcadia’s brand new biofuelled arena, which follows previous sustainability efforts including the Spider structure constructed from recycled military hardware.

“The Spider is over 90% recycled repurposed materials, so we’re really proud of that... And at some point, we’ll be making something new, and that will be another really inspiring piece that’s got a whole new life of its own. But I’m pretty heavily embargoed on that one at the moment!”, Cole told DJ Mag.

Information about the potential new structure is currently “under wraps”, but Cole has revealed that “Glastonbury will be discussing it a bit with people in the near future so that’s another exciting avenue for us!”

“We’re always keen and open to bring in new technology, new people, new ideas into the mixture. We don’t feel like [Arcadia] is our thing that we own, in that sense, it’s more of a platform for people to come and do pioneering things and entertain people with that. So yeah, it’s all quite exciting really. A lot of Arcadia’s stuff is a real dance between what’s technically possible and what’s creatively interesting, and I think those two things really need each other.”

Arcadia have also said that they are undertaking new experiments with the Lords of Lightning Tesla Coil show — a highly-charged act where performers harness over four million volts of electricity through giant Tesla coils. “We’re working on making a show which is powered by the sun — from solar power into batteries into the Tesla Coil, and then out into lightning again. That’s not quite ready yet but is just another example of us trying to sort of experiment and find new ways of doing things,” Cole said.

“We’ve managed to run the Tesla Coil’s on batteries so far, which was quite a breakthrough, so we’re getting closer but it’s just about trying to get to the point where we can capture enough solar to charge the batteries to run the lightning. But at some point that will be released, and that will be another completely new thing.”

Earlier this month, Arcadia revealed that the 2023 arena will run exclusively on renewable biofuels for the first time. Speaking to DJ Mag, Cole explained, “We’re always trying to do things that are different and repurposing things from one life and putting it into another, and it just feels like if we can do that with our fuel supplies and our energy systems then we’re walking the talk.”

Arcadia unveiled its full 2023 line-up for the arena earlier this month, including a DJ slot from The Chemical Brothers, alongside appearances from the likes of DJ Flight, Elkka, Dr Banana, SHERELLE, VTSS, Hybrid Minds (ft Tempza), Shy FX (ft Stamina MC) and MK. The fire-breathing spider stage will also host a number of b2b sets, including Floating Points b2b Daphni, Skream b2b Interplanetary Criminal, Chloé Robinson b2b Plastician, and DJ Q b2b Yung Singh.