Visiting the Modular Cafe this week - Part 1

I first became aware of the Modular Cafe in either later 2019 or early 2020 as part of an arts programme I was invited to take part in. We were organising a string of events to take place that year in the towns of Aldershot and Farnborough (my old town). We all gathered at one of the best known venues in the area, the West End Centre and the plans were made across music, photography, drama, heritage etc etc. It was on this occasion that I met two people from the Modular Cafe (ModCaf) and they told me about an exciting project they were in the process of researching, to host a concert from within one of Farnborough's historic wind tunnels.

Now for those of you not familiar with the wind tunnels, they are vast cavernous buildings that are sealed and pitch black inside. We once went on a tour and they weren't exaggerating when they said it is the closest thing to stepping into space, without the anti-gravity, vacuum etc. You can't see your hands in front of your face but if you talk and other people do, the acoustics are quite something but it's really hard to pinpoint where people are in the space around you.

So as the guys from ModCaf described the synthesizer setup, lighting effects (one of the founders works in stage lighting at big venues) I was super excited. This I had to attend.

Then Covid happened. Time passed.

It wasn't until last week that I came across a post online to learn that in the end, after a two year delay or so, the show took place at the Wind Tunnel. I had totally missed it!

Glad to say that it went really well, as I got in touch with them. It's unlikely that they'll stage another ambitious show like it again unless they're invited to by the charity that runs the facilities. However they did recall meeting me all of those years ago and invited me to attend their next monthly meetup, which takes place tomorrow in Aldershot. I am very excited about it and will take something along with me to share with them, probably the modular rack I am building at the moment.

To learn more about the ModCaf, patch your leads into this URL (get it!) - https://www.modcaf.org.uk/

There are many videos on their site and this one was really good, so sharing it here.

Check out the gallery on their home page!

I'll write part 2 of this post on Friday or Saturday after I've been to this month's session. Excited!