As Greenbelt Festival celebrates its fiftieth anniversary this year, we are aiming to crowdfund the production costs of 50: a festival lexicon, a beautiful, large-format full-colour hardcover book, with 256 pages full of striking design, photography and graphics, all inspired by the festival's past, present and future.
50: a festival lexicon will tell the stories of Greenbelt Festival through fifty short reflections and tales, poems and prayers, each of which hangs on a single word with special resonance for the festival. The central thread of the book is a lexicon that explores the vocabulary of a festival about to enter its sixth decade.
With contributions from dozens of thinkers and writers like Rowan Williams, Kate Bottley, Ann Pettifor, John Bell, Abdul-Rehman Malik, Pádraig Ó Tuama, Chine McDonald, Barbara Brown Taylor, Bidisha Mamata, Sister Teresa Forcades and Brian McLaren, it's our attempt to map the shape of the last fifty years and light the way for the next fifty.
Click on the image below for a free glimpse of a few of the 256 pages awaiting all the crowdfunders of our book. This sample includes Harry Baker writing about the word Home and Brian McLaren on Liminality.
Our vision for the book
We're working hard to make a book as contrary and cathartic as the festival itself. A work of art in its own right, packed with striking design and photography. We're planning to tell the story of Greenbelt by... not telling the story of Greenbelt. So don't think of it as the history of a festival, but instead as the geography of a spirituality.
Because who better to tell the story of our festival than us, its community? That's why everyone we've asked to contribute to the book has some kind of connection to this festival we all make together. Fifty different words for fifty years. Fifty different ways to see, hear and feel the festival.
We want it to feel like a symphony of voices. A polyphony. A cacophony. And we hope you'll be moved, inspired and fired up by the results. Just as you would be by the festival itself.
What will you get for your money?
We're crowdfunding to help us create a beautiful, large-format, full-colour, hardcover book that tries to bottle the essence of this festival so many of us love, and print a copy for everyone who wants one. Being one of our crowdfunders will also be the only way to guarantee your own copy.
The entry reward level is £30 (plus postage) for a copy of the book. Just like our radical new flat-pricing of tickets this year, we want to make this crowdfunder as inclusive as possible.
We hope 50: a festival lexicon will feel like a celebration for our community as well as an open invitation to anyone else who picks it up. Because everyone's invited. Just like the festival itself.
As a crowdfunder you'll get your copy of the book delivered before the festival itself (unless you specifically want to pick it up at Boughton in August). Your name will also be printed in the book as a thank you to everyone who made it happen. The rest of it – any other rewards you choose – is entirely up to you!
We've put together some lovely stuff for those of you who might want a little more, too. Pick the reward level that suits you best, depending on what you feel willing (and able) to contribute.
Here's an example. A gorgeous illustration of the festival by artist Sarah Kirby. One of our reward tiers includes a limited edition print of this piece (40cm x 40cm, edition of 50), in addition to your copy of the book:
Why we're crowdfunding the book
Greenbelt is investing some of our own funds in the creation and design of this book, but we are crowdfunding the print run itself because, ultimately, we're festival-makers not book publishers.
There are sound, sensible financial reasons for inviting Greenbelters to help us crowdfund the book's production. As stewards of the festival, this feels like the most responsible, sustainable way to properly mark our half-century, while ensuring we can invest as much as we can into creating a 50th anniversary festival to remember.
This way we can make sure we gauge the level of demand for a 50th book before we decide the print run, and it gives us a better chance to make sure the project breaks even (it's not a profit-making venture).
If you love the idea of this book and you'd like to chip in a little extra to help make it happen, please feel free! When you pick your reward you can make a separate extra donation (and add gift aid if you want to, increasing the donation by 25%) in addition to the reward you choose (which you can't gift aid).
Guarantee your copy. Be a crowdfunder.
If we're successful in crowdfunding the book like this, we can make sure that everyone who really wants one of these books can guarantee their copy in advance, as well as see their names in the finished book they helped bring to life.
If we hit our targets, we will also add a small, limited print run of the book to the number of crowdfunded copies being printed, and this small stock will be available for sale to everyone else in the G-Store at the festival. When they're gone, though, they're gone. The only way to guarantee that you don't miss out on a copy, is to join the crowdfunders.