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Hello, For a couple of years now I've been managing Einstein's Garden, the science, nature and environment area of the Green Man Festival. I think we've been pretty successful in integrating science into a cultural event and this is down to all the amazing contributors who provide the content (i'm not blowing my own trumpet!). We've had a band who made music from the sounds of an asteroid shower, stand-up maths, a performance lecture about quantum physics and teleportation, a performer whose show involved 40 different animals, songs about science, poetry about science, comedy about science, science busking, science stalls, science walks, science talks, workshops, installations, theatre, dance... And it's definitely not just aimed at kids, we have a fair bit of over 18's only content. Our aim is to make the programming 'fun, quirky and unexpected' so it's not exactly the serious side of science but we are committed to making real scientists accessible to audiences in direct and informal ways. The thing about a music festival environment is people are there first and foremost to have fun, but they also seem to be very open to interacting and participating when something catches their interest. This is evidenced by the fact that we run a life drawing class in Einstein's Garden with festival goers as volunteer models and we never have any problem recruiting! I think, although music is obviously the main draw for a festival like Green Man, it is widely acknowledged that people don't come solely for the music, they come for creative, diverse and thought provoking content and although I doubt many people come solely for the science, I do think that people see science, nature and the environment as part of their cultural experience. The Green Man Festival won best medium festival at the UK festival awards last year so we must be doing something right! Ellen Dowell Manager and Curator of Einstein's Garden The Green Man Festival The Green Man Festival - winner of Best Medium Festival, UK Festival Awards 2010 ********************************************************************** Further information about the psci-com discussion list, including list archive, can be found at the list web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/psci-com.html You may also change your settings and subscribe/unsubscribe to psci-com from the web site. Psci-com is part of the National Academic Mailing List Service, known as 'JISCMail'. It adheres to the JISCMail Acceptible Use Policy: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/policyandsecurity/acceptableuse.html and to the JISCMail guidelines for etiquette: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/policyandsecurity/etiquette.html Email commands: 1. To suspend yourself from the list, whilst on leave, for example, send an email to mailto:[log in to unmask] with the following message: set psci-com nomail -- [include hyphens] 2. To resume email from the list, send an email to [log in to unmask] with the message: set psci-com mail -- [include hyphens] 3. To leave psci-com, send an email to [log in to unmask] with the message: leave psci-com -- [include hyphens] Please allow up to 24 hours for these commands to activate. Remember that you will need to send commands using the same email address that you used to register on psci-com. To contact the Psci-com list owner, please send an email to: [log in to unmask] **********************************************************************