Introducing Shambino – What, Why and Woohooo!
What a wild ride the past 18 months have been, and continue to be. Now the powers that be have spoken, whilst restrictions will be in place for a few weeks longer than expected, it’s looking like we’ll be out of the socially distanced woods (and into The Enchanted Woods) in good time for the August Bank Holiday… meaning we can finally fill you lot in on what that mysterious Save The Date was all about…
Whilst a full-scale Shambala wasn’t possible for us again this year, we are pulling out all the stops to bring you a dinky and gorgeous distillation of all that makes Shambala magic, over the August Bank Holiday weekend (26-29th August 2021).
Why? More than 75% of you said you wanted us to go ahead with a smaller scale event in the audience survey last month. We are confident it’s doable, and we are committed to doing everything possible to bring us all together for some human connection, live music and pure, unadulterated Shambala silliness. We also strongly feel that if we can pull something off this Summer, we owe it to our crew, our artists, our suppliers and our performers to do so.
It’s been tricky to say the least to choose the perfect moment to launch this event, but now is the time to press go, to enable it to happen. The August bank holiday is a solid 5 weeks after the new ‘unlocking’ date, and the current outlook looks positive for that to happen.
We are all over the details of how to deliver this event as safely as possible, and will put in place a raft of sensible measures such as requiring everyone to provide a negative covid test result to gain entry, enhanced sanitation onsite, and plenty of space. Exact plans and requirements will become clearer as we move closer to the event date….
Community Indemnity Pledge
A particularly important and practical matter is that of insurance (or a lack thereof!). Without [covid-related] insurance options, it’s a scary prospect for a small independent festival. We want to be here for another 20 years, but without insurance we must ask you to support us again, so as not to jeopardise the future of Kambe and Shambala in a worst case scenario.
To spread an element of risk we have come up with the idea of a ‘Community Indemnity Pledge’ (or CIP). Whilst we believe hand on hearts we can pull this off and all ticket funds will go towards an amazing show and experience for all, under the scheme the £40 CIP element of each adult ticket is non-refundable in the event of a cancellation.
The audience CIP contributions will cover less than a sixth of our financial exposure for the event, and alongside the CRF funding support we received to offset some of the losses incurred over the last 2 years, it is critical to us in ensuring a future to 2022 and beyond! We thank you again from the bottom of our hearts.
WHAT TO EXPECT FROM SHAMBINO…
Expect an incredible quality, small event with all the soul and magic that makes Shambala so special: An array of delicious-ness including; live music, talks, workshops, poetry, art installations, the Shambala carnival, dance classes, circus and performance – hosted in some of Shambala’s most iconic main venues, from Chai Wallahs to The Enchanted Woods, Barrio, The Roots Yard, Playtopia, Sankofa’s, The Healing Meadow and Police Rave Unit – plus more surprises and takeovers from your beloved smaller Sham venues.
Shambino will take place on the usual Shambala festival site, a gorgeous country estate in Northamptonshire, complete with lakes and woodlands. Directions to the site will be sent to all ticket holders ahead of the event.
Delve into our confirmed venues, on our What’s On page – with a full line up dropping in mid July.
“HOW DO I BOOK?!”
We do wish we had capacity for our full Shambala audience, but sadly that is not possible this year (but what a reunion Shambala 2022 will be). With this in mind, we’ve been thinking hard about the fairest way to release tickets for Shambino.
Back in 2020, when we very first cancelled, our existing ticket holders were offered the option of donating a ‘Superstar Donation’ to help keep the festival afloat.
We were planning to make a fuss of our Superstar Donators on site at the next full scale Shambala – and we’ll still do that – but we weren’t expecting this on-site thank you to be quite so long in the making! So, to say a big thank you to all our Superstar Donators for their generosity and patience, we will be opening up Shambino sales to Superstar Donators for 24 hours, before opening sales up to everybody else…
- At 12pm on Wednesday 23rd June all Superstar donators will be sent a link to book their tickets. These will be sent to the email address you used to book your Shambala tickets and make your Superstar donation, so keep yer eyes on yer inboxes and spam folders, superstars.
- At 12pm the following day (Thursday 24th June) tickets will go live here on the Shambino website to everybody else.
*Please note SuperStar donations are a separate entity to the crowdfunder rewards. Our amazing crowdfunder donors have either had their rewards fulfilled already via post, or will be receiving them on site at the next Shambala.
*Please also note that whilst Superstar donators do get priority access, tickets are not guaranteed or reserved, and once they’re gone they’re gone – we can’t take responsibility for any Superstar Donators missing out.
Please note you will need to add contact details (name, age, email and phone number) for each ticket – including children – though parents/guardians can put their own email and phone numbers for their kids. You can log into your Ticket Sellers account to change these details anytime ahead of 12th August when your ticket barcodes will be generated and sent out. There will be ID checks on entry to ensure tickets are in the right name.
Please note that all adult tickets for Shambino must be purchased in conjunction with a Community Indemnity Pledge – please make sure you read all about that here before you book.
Let’s do this, Shambalans – it’s been too long.
All our love,
Sham HQ x