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Melamatik is a non-for-profit social enterprise designed to unite the UK's most diverse music scene with a prolongued and varied series of concerts, workshops, recitals, performances, gigs and raves, catering for all styles of music under the sun. 
By including everything from bhangra, reggae, dub and world music through rock, folk and punk, hip hop and techno, through to classical orchestras, brass bands and theatrical musicals, MelaMatik Music And Arts Festival is a universal music festival which knows no boundaries.
Music and art should unite rather than divide and conquer. By encouraging musical broadmindedness, MelaMatik strives to encourage unbaised appreciation of soundwaves across the entire spectrum. We don't suddenly expect everybody to start body-popping to Mantovani, getting your rocks off to the Brighouse and Rastrick, recite hardcore hiphop lyrics to auntie, and waltz out to thrash metal, but if we can foster mutual understanding of contrasting scenes, we are half-way there to break down artificial, man-made musical barriers that seperate humanity from being one big smiley happy family.
We encourage participation in the music scene for people of all ages, ethnic backgrounds, genders, backgrounds, disabilities and mobilities. We oppose small-mindedness, homophobia, racial, religious and disability prejudice, musical snobbery, petty scene rivalries, and anything which divides rather than unites the peeps.
"In the beginning there was Jack ... and Jack had a groove, And from this groove came the grooves of all grooves..."
We as festival promoters are aware of the impact upon the environment of the music industry, and the responsibility forthwith, to reduce global carbon emissions for the sake of saving the planet.
This year's highlighted charities are Action Aid, Candlelighters and Busking For Cancer. We are more than happy to link up with charitable organisations who share our positive aims, to ensure a caring future for everybody.
By supporting the local music scene of Northern England, and encouraging the public to attend local events featuring both established and emerging artists, we are encouraging our punters to "go local" and maintain the framework of a low carbon economy.
Our festival programme is available online, and downloading it via the internet saves trees being felled, reducing deforestation. Trees are still disappearing from the surface of the earth at such an incredibly alarming rate. If we can encourage music and art lovers to spare a thought to protect our ecosystem, we are not merely entertaining peeps with the widest-ever variety of musical styles known to man - we are also, most importantly, helping to maintain the ecosystem to protect the future of the planet.
Chemical toilets suck and use harzardous chemicals that are bad for the environment. By siting gigs in urban as well as rural areas, utilising existing premises including cafes, bars, restaurants, concert halls, theatres and easily-accessible outdoor areas (with pre-existing flushing toilets and litter bins), we are actively reducing the environmental impact of our festival compared to other happenings.
MelaMatik does not belong to the event organisers, the steering commitee, the many willing volunteers, the graphic designers, the sound guys, the visual technicians, the songwriters, the recording artists, or the superstars of today or tomorrow.
IT BELONGS TO YOU.
As a non-hierarchal collective of like-minds entertaining, educating and inspiring everybody, no-matter what sounds you're into, to get down and party, MelaMatik does away with egocentric back-biting, point-scoring, power trips and all such petty personality-clash nonsense.
Everyone involved with MelaMatik has a commitment to engage the respect of the rest of the set-up as no more or less than an equal, from planners, stewards, sponsors, graphic designers, glass collectors and cleaners through to DJs, sound engineers and singers. Nobody can claim MelaMatik as their own individualistic, mollycoddled baby, when in-fact MelaMatik is owned equally by everybody, the ideas, the intellectual content, and the finished product, whether you're involved in putting on a gig or event, producing the overall festival, or an enthused punter steppin' out at the weekend to shake your booty.
Melamatik is fair-minded, democratic, caring, easy-going, environmental, egalitarian, pro-humanitarian, universal, and unlimited in scope for like-minded peeps wanting to get involved, whether as a volunteer, a music fan, a co-promoter wanting to put events on, or an ethical sponsor fancing to show us some love, and help spread the message of peace, love and unity to Northern England.
HAVE PLENTY OF FUN...... ENJOY MELAMATIK 2010! |