The SoapBox stage Migration
After almost a decade of the SoapBox stage at FolkEast, we are migrating to pastures new, and saying farewell to the folk family who so warmly embraced getonthesoapbox.
The SoapBox stage was known for booking new and emerging artists, taking a ‘flexible’ definition of folk, and for creating a ‘Festival within a Festival’ with 100’s of handmade jellyfish, bunting, tunnels, walkways, and artworks made from recycled materials. It’s been an utter joy to create this magical realm in the woods at Glemham Hall, and SoapBox will forever be grateful for the opportunities that we were given by FolkEast.
These days all our worlds are characterised by flux and we have all endured much change over the past two years, provoking many of us to reassess our direction of travel. It has been a truly wonderful journey producing the SoapBox stage at FolkEast. We will forever value the huge amount of support, trust, and creative freedom that was extended to the SoapBox crew in the many years we worked together pre-pandemic. SoapBox was invited to participate in this year’s FolkEast Festival, albeit in a much-reduced capacity, and the whole team felt that we could not deliver a version of SoapBox that would properly reflect the quality and breadth of our work within these constraints.
SoapBox has been running gigs in Suffolk & Norfolk for 16 years. We have worked with many Festivals across the country, programming shows and installing décor, so it is with great delight that have found a new home for the SoapBox stage in 2022 – The East Anglian Storytelling Festival – with the much anticipated return of the SoapBox Jellyfish Parade and the Electrosonic Poetry Experiment. We’ll be bringing all the SoapBox Jellyfish out from retirement, and hanging them throughout the gorgeous 75 acre site of the Museum of East Anglian Life in Stowmarket, August 26-28th 2022.
SoapBox founder Amy Wragg is putting together a homemade, DIY (maga)zine about the SoapBox stage at FolkEast to celebrate all the times we shared together. Please send us your favourite memories of the SoapBox stage. Who were the best bands & poets you discovered with us? Funny stories and joyful moments – send us your memories of the SoapBox stage and (as many as possible) will be featured in this zine. Amy will be choosing her favourites and illustrating them, along with stories from the getonthesoapbox archive. All contributors will be sent a free copy. All existing Box Sub Zine Subscribers will automatically get one in the post. This one-off zine is available to pre-order now for £10 for our website, and will come with a piece of SoapBox bunting made from recycled materials. All monies raised will help us pay for a new hardrive to properly store our extensive video and audio archive, featuring unseen video from the first SoapBox in 2006 to the current day.
Thank you so much all for your ongoing support. It means the world. Thanks to FolkEast for giving SoapBox a space at their Festival, to the very talented artists who graced our stage, and to the wonderful audiences we shared so many magical times with.
HUGE love to all the build crew, stage volunteers, creatives, artists, caterers, bar crew, technicians, drivers, familes, kids and friends who gave so much of their time & love to make the SoapBox stage at FolkEast a truly magnificent experience.
Click here for a 12 song whistlestop retrospective >>>> Youtube Playlist <<<< all live performances from artists on the SoapBox stage over the years.
See you at the Museum of East Anglian Life, August 26-28th for the return of the SoapBox stage, at
the East Anglian Storytelling Festival 2022.
Love & boxes,
Email: amy@getonthesoapbox.co.uk
Instagram: @getonthesoapbox
Facebook: getonthesoapbox
Contributions to the digital archive project: Paypal.me/getonthesoapbox
Pre-order the commemorative zine for £10 >>> Here <<< (Publication date July 2022)