Ultrachip 2011 will be happening over Friday 19th August & Saturday 20th August at The Forest, Edinburgh. Like last year, all elements of the event will be free to attend. Alcohol will be onsale at the venue, so the live music in the evenings will be 18+.

There will be events happening in the afternoon on both days, including chipmusic related workshops, a market, and some kind of gaming event. Full details to follow.

Live music will run from approximately 8pm till 3am, with a selection of different chip acts from around the UK (and beyond?) playing each night. There will also be DJs providing music between acts, and live visuals from some cool guys.

An additional feature this year is an open mic hour. This will run at the beginning of Friday & Saturday night’s line-up. Any chip musician in attendance who’s not on the bill but wants to show what they can do – this is for you.

To anyone considering attending, I highly recommend you book accommodation as soon as you can. Ultrachip will be happening at the height of the Edinburgh Festival, a time when the city is ridiculously busy. Good luck!

Full details of line-up, times, etc. will be revealed over the coming weeks/months. Also, this ugly website will be getting overhauled. Thanks.

Ultrachip venue The Forest is currently facing closure unless they can raise the £500,000 required to buy their building.

The Forest is an important arts and events space that has provided great support to the local creative community for over a decade. In an attempt to help out, we’ve put together a benefit album where all proceeds go directly to them.

‘Ultrachip VS Forest Closure’ features tracks by every artist who performed at Ultrachip. The bulk of them are exclusive, new or rare. £5 gets you 15 tracks, neat accompanying artwork by Retchy v Smash, plus your money goes towards a worthy cause. It’s a good deal.

Stream above, follow link to download. Thanks.

The Forest was filled to capacity on Saturday, with people queueing outside for entry. Experienced acts remarked that it was the most enthusiastic UK chip gig crowd they’d ever seen. Sunday night (held in the larger upstairs area) saw a second assault of equally powerful music, though with a slightly reduced crowd. We’ll aim for a Friday & Saturday night next time instead. :)

My heartfelt thanks to all who performed, contributed and attended. All acts (musical and visual) performed without payment, purely for the love of chip music. The event was free to attend, which meant a greater number of random people turned up & were exposed to fresh sounds. I personally spoke to several people who’d never heard any chip music before that weekend, but were rendered excited converts by their Ultrachip experience. This is good.

Ultrachip 2011 will definitely be happening, but you’ll have a long wait for further details. I suggest you follow us on Twitter and watch for the signal. Have patience.

There are plenty of photos on the Ultrachip Facebook group, plus many videos grouped together on the Ultrachip YouTube channel.

Here’s a small sample:

Photos courtesy of Tom Lindsay. Check the above links for more media. Don’t let yourself down.

12pm, main hall – Chip Market starts, ongoing until 5pm. A range of chip-related music, accessories, art, electronics, other, will be on offer for you to peruse and purchase.

1pm, room 2 – ‘The VJ Survival Guide’, presented by LastKnight

2pm, room 2 – LSDJ tutorial, presented by Edward Shallow

3pm, main hall – Tonylight performs live!

4pm, room 2 – Circuit Bending tutorial, presented by Enfant Bastard

5pm – CLOSE, so setup/soundchecking can start for that night.

Each tutorial will be up to 1 hour in length (but no longer), and will be FREE to attend. Attendees: please be on time! Don’t wander in late if you can help it; it’s disrespectful to the hosts, who are being good enough to share their knowledge & expertise for no personal gain.

Don’t miss Tonylight! Hear great live music while browsing chip goods, 3-4pm!

Behold! The white border is just so it can be seen more clearly on this page. You can download the standard poster from these locations:

SMALL (for general online posting / spamming)
FULL A3 SIZE! (if you want to go crazy and print off copies for some reason)

Spread the word!

\\Saturday 21st August\\
Jellica
gwEm
The Tin Foil Hat Brigade
Fueldiva
Comptroller
Diamonds & Dynamite
Samwave

\\Sunday 22nd August\\
Talk to Animals
Firebrand Boy
Edward Shallow
Enfant Bastard
an-cat-max
arcadecoma.
Bit Face

Music expected to run from approximately 8.30pm – 1.30am, with DJs until 3am.

Plus visuals from:

Saturday 21st August – LastKnight, Retchy & Smash

Sunday 22nd August – Pointless Creations, Robert Motyka

The poster should be ready for unveiling soon…

Now we begin sorting out the details and nailing things down as best we can. We humbly suggest you follow our progress by joining the Ultrachip Facebook group and/or following us on Twitter. We will keep you informed of exciting developments.

A list of confirmed chip artists (so far) can also be seen over on the right. We’ll be adding to that over the next couple of weeks. The final schedule of live visual artists will also soon be revealed.

There is much still to do.