The Tour of Infinite Possibility: Weekend 1

Well it’s taken some serious coffee and a lot of moaning but I think we’re just about human again after the mammoth first weekend of The Tour of Infinite Possibility! And what an incredible, exhilarating and rewarding two days it was. How do we quantify its ephemeral magic? Through some hard stats, that’s how:

470 participants
91 Ukuleles
1600 audience members
Unbelievably, only 93 miles
31 hours worked over 2 days
500 ponchos
600 bottles of water
600 bags of crisps
600 choccie buscuits (breakaway by far the most popular!)
More bread and pastry than a half price Greggs
A tonne of quiche
And a 24 pack of Berroca.

It’s been a project of stats so far. 12 towns, 12 shows, 4 days, 100 workshops, 1500 participants etc etc. But this weekend all of that became a very tangible reality. We’ve been working on this project since January, in fact before then if you count the application process, and it’s taken up a huge amount of our time. We’ve had to up our game no end. H&S are ‘famous’ for our glorious chaos but this was just too big, too complicated to manage with a wing, a prayer and a total faith in the fact that “it’ll be reet”! There are production managers, project managers, risk assessments, insurance, spreadsheets, databases, rehearsals, run-throughs, mock-ups, strategies…it has, at times, been overwhelming. And there have been arguments. Mainly by email because email is the fastest way for two people to disagree about something they agree on. But, more than anything, there has been joy. Joy at realising we had a wonderful project ahead of us. Joy at seeing the huge uptake. Joy at getting to tour around this beautiful and varied county of ours. Most of all though, joy at working with people who just love taking part. As we set up for the 5th gig this weekend I turned to Ben and said “there are some very happy people here” and that’s what it’s felt like all along. Some very happy people turning up to get involved and do something different with our days. It’s a very special thing.

So I’m not going to write a blow by blow account here. The lovely photos below from Sodium say more than I can. Suffice to say the weather threw all it could at us over 36 hours and the good people of Yorkshire took it firmly on the chin. So many wonderful men, women and children to thank for coming and making glorious music with us…so THANK YOU!

And an incredible, open-mouthed-in-awe thank you to the crew and team who made this weekend all possible. Well above and beyond the call of duty. A pleasure to spend time with you all. Special thanks to:

http://www.isophaseaudio.co.uk/ – the sound
http://www.eventequipmenthire.co.uk/ – the stage
http://www.fireflysolar.net/ – the power

Hero’s one and all! Each of them relishing making the impossible possible.

Now, as Ben said yesterday, it’s only half time so eat your oranges and go out there and finish them off!

Tickets for Weekend 2 still available from the tickets page.

T-shirts still available from our Bandcamp site.