The Fierce Festival 2024 programme launches on 17 July and in the process of curating it over the last 18 months, the team have been talking about some of the many ICONIC MOMENTS from Fierce’s 25 years of history – so we thought we’d share some of our favourites with you below!
Were you there for any of them? Let us know via our socials if so, we’d love to hear your memories!
1. We cannot speak about ICONIC without mentioning The Great Swallow AKA the Birdman of Birmingham – when Benjamin Verdonck lived in a giant bird’s nest on the side of the Rotunda for a week.
2. Luke Jerram’s Sky Orchestra saw the CBSO flying low over the city in hot air balloons at dusk playing music designed to influence peoples dreams.
3. That time we hosted a sexy reappraisal of Visions of Excess, curated by Ron Athey and Lee Adams, featuring an incredible line-up of live artists taking over a strip club for the night…. not for the faint hearted!
4. Dachshund UN by Bennett Miller saw a collection of local dogs taking up their seats in an exact replica of the former UN office in Geneva. Doggy chaos ensued!
5. Greame Miller’s Track invited audiences to lie horizontally and see Spaghetti Junction from an entirely different view point.
6. Lying in the soil to hear the stories of ten ordinary people who were buried in Syrian gardens, in Tania El Khoury’s Garden Speaks.
7. A giant latex pig from Japan giving birth in the middle of Club Fierce, Saeborg’s Pigpen.
8. Giving away 15,000 keys and the freedom of the city with Paul Ramírez Jonas’ Key to the City.
9. Taking over Birmingham Botanical Gardens and filling it with queer joy for Duckie and Fierce’s Princess, Picnic, Promenade.