Boomtown’s new Observatory wants to make the real world a little better

Photography by Giulia Spadafora Ever wondered how living in a temporary city alongside temporary neighbours for a weekend alters your behaviour, wellbeing, health, and back-to-reality life? Dr Martha Newson and Shula Rael have. But each year as the sun comes up on Monday morning, the answers drift away from Boomtown like dandelion puffballs in the breeze. Enter: The Observatory – the big, bulging brain of the annual, Hampshire-based festival. Boomtown runs 12–16 August and has come to be known as the UK’s wildest thanks to its enveloping story world and epic infrastructure. Nestled up in the woods, The Observatory is a cornerstone of its Chapter Five: Radical Redesign, whose ambitious green energy policies and welfare initiatives mark a watershed moment for festivals everywhere. “We’ve got 77,000 people in this collective space, and we’ve got so much warm data that comes at us every single year, but it leaves when the gates close,” Rael tells me. She’s Boomtown’s brand director and, together with Dr Newson and her team, helped to develop the Observatory, which will hold talks, workshops, and panels throughout the festival weekend – with topics running the gamut from ‘Music is Medic...