There's been a lot of talk around what's going to be the new centrepiece of popular Glastonbury Festival area Block 9, ever since the team behind it announced changes last year.
And we now know what the exciting developments are as the creative group's founders reveal information about it. Suffice to say, it's going to be very special.
IICON is a sculpted and video-mapped artwork and stage which will make its debut at Worthy Farm this year. The Block9 area, which has housed popular stages including NYD Downlow and Genosys in previous years, will be tripling in size to accommodate the spectacular new 15,000 person outdoor arena.
There are no images of IICON just yet, but what we do know is that it will showcase a "vision of future music from the cutting edge of today's underground," from glitch-funk algorave and post-dubstep, to footwork, grime, electro and cyber-dub.
The line-up for IICON, as well as the rest of the Block9 field, will be announced later on this month.
After premiering this year, IICON will return to Glastonbury Festival every year, with a special show in 2020 to celebrate Glastonbury’s 50 anniversary.
"It is our response to the world we live in today.”
Stephen Gallagher of Block9 said: “IICON represents the data-fuelled power of faceless multinationals and personifies how humanity has found itself trapped in self-imposed, digital bondage.
"It is our response to the world we live in today.”
Co-founder Gideon Berger said: “There are certain groups of artists, musical movements and individual pieces of music that, when interrogated, tell an incredible human story; a story that today may be easily forgotten as we are prescribed a severely limited repertoire via our smartphones.
"Our consumption of music as commodified entertainment totally overlooks the social, political and historical narratives that gave birth to this music in the first place.
"IICON unpacks multiple loaded musical phenomena from the last 100 years and prompts the reveller to delve a little deeper into music.”
Glastonbury Festival 2019: Another incredible new addition has been revealed
Emily Eavis' reaction
Emily Eavis, Glastonbury Festival organiser, says: “We are extremely excited to unveil this new installation from the creative force that is Block9.
"They have masterminded some incredible work over the years with the NYC Downlow, Genosys and London Underground, but this new creation, IICON is mind-blowing.
"It’s going to be epic.”
