Off the Grid began as a solar-powered party in a London basement, then a solar sculpture beach party in Mexico, before landing at ACCA in 2015 as Australia's only solar-powered arts festival, held each year on the summer solstice, the longest day of sun. That first year, 7kW of solar and a battery on a five-metre solar stage ran the whole day, with Cut Copy DJs, Banoffee, Tornado Wallace and Sui Zhen playing into the night and the biodiesel backup never switched on. In 2016 it added a conference on the future of cities, The Palimpsest, with speakers from architecture, energy and activism before NO ZU and The Senegambian Jazz Band took over, and the whole day produced just two bags of waste. By 2017 it ran from 9am to 11pm, with talks by day and Jay Daniel from Detroit and Chee Shimizu from Japan by night, all on 90 solar panels and a 160kWh battery, and the waste came down to a single bag.
Every event was powered with a solar array and battery bank to ensure the music is entirely off grid.Through the afternoon the sound system ran straight from the sun, and after dark it ran on stored solar. A portable solar-powered cool room kept the food and drinks chilled.
A biodiesel generator running on locally grown canola oil stood by for emergencies.
Over the years, the solar-powered stage brought together local heroes and international guests. Cut Copy DJs, Tornado Wallace, Sui Zhen, NO ZU, Banoffee, Kaiit, Andras, Andee Frost, Albrecht La’Brooy, Krakatau, Wax’O Paradiso and Toni Yotzi shared the line-up with Detroit’s Jay Daniel and Tokyo selector Chee Shimizu, alongside dance and performance works from Melbourne’s art scene.
The food was hyper-local, seasonal and partly cooked by the sun on solar cookers, and the drinks came from zero-waste bars, pouring local, sustainably brewed beer.
Alongside the music, some of Australia’s leading environmentalists, architects, designers, activists and entrepreneurs came together for The Palimpsest*, a conversation-style forum on the future of our cities, with speakers including Joost Bakker, Clare Cousins, Jessie Hochberg, Erin Rhoads and Taryn Lane.
*A palimpsest is a document written over again and again, always evolving, much like a city.
We created it, produced it and powered it. It was our first attempt at becoming the developer ourselves, and a prototype for how we make things happen that aren't happening yet. If we could run a day on the sun, build a stage from circular materials and deliver an event with almost no waste, why couldn't we do it for a building, a master plan or a city?
