Extinction Rebellion activists are set to join Boomtown Fair - the first real-life organisation to do so in the immersive event's history.
Members of the group, which recently held a week-long 'summer uprising' in Bristol, will take part in the festival's 11th year which has been named Chapter 11: A Radical City.
As well as featuring some of the biggest music acts on the planet, Boomtown is the world's largest interactive theatre experience, with XR becoming the first real group in the event's history to play an active role in the storyline.
Activists will join XR's 'red rebel brigade' on the Lion's Den stage - the main stage at the festival - for tonight's opening ceremony, and will remain in character at the Rebel Rebel Hideout across the weekend where they will provide 'direct action training' to prospective activists.
Twice a day, 'rebels' will carry a replica of the now–iconic pink boat, which was on Bristol Bridge in July, through the crowd, and occupy the main stages in between sets. Hooked up with a mobile sound system, it will host speeches and music, inviting passersby to learn about the climate emergency.
The 'Boomtown Bobbies' will then come and arrest the Rebels and impound the boat, simulating a mini protest.
At 3pm on Sunday, the final day of the festival, there will also be a 'skeleton rebellion' - during which performers will dress up in funeral attire and parade with model skeletons of extinct animals.
As has come to be expected with the group, surprise action will also take place throughout the festival.
Ems Jones, Extinction Rebellion performance artist, said: "Boomtown is a festival like no other, where the musical acts themselves, as amazing as they are, play second fiddle to this phantasmagorical world, conjured around an overarching story, with thousands of interwoven intricate subplots and myriad little details which make it feel so real.
"It is a microcosm of the outside world, making starkly apparent the power dynamics and forces, malevolent, benevolent and ambivalent, which govern and craft our reality.
"It is the perfect platform for us to utilise immersive theatre, gamification and roleplay to encourage the as yet uninitiated to take action on the Climate and Ecological Emergency, both for fun within this simulation and also in the real world, where their help is so sorely needed."
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