Hong Kong’s largest and longest-running outdoor music and arts festival, and a major highlight of the city’s annual cultural calendar, Clockenflap has built its reputation on the alchemy of Music-Art-People.
Launched in 2008 by friends and co-founders Mike Hill (Festival Director), Justin Sweeting (Music Director) and Jay Forster (Artistic Director), Clockenflap has grown from an intimate one-day gathering of 1,500 local music-lovers at Cyberport, to a three-day cultural extravaganza in front of 60,000+ visitors from Hong Kong and around the world at West Kowloon in 2015.
The city is at the very heart of everything that makes Clockenflap tick, and nowhere is this more evident than at the 2016 setting of the Central Harbourfront site. The sight of the iconic Hong Kong skyline and ships floating across Victoria Harbour prompted funk legend Nile Rodgers to call it the best festival setting he’s ever played in his life.
Since 2008, the festival has brought a spectacular and amazingly varied array of talent to the city, including New Order, The Libertines, A$AP Rocky, Primal Scream, Chic featuring Nile Rodgers, Franz Ferdinand, The Flaming Lips, Damien Rice, 2manyDJs, De La Soul and hundreds of others, while also showcasing Hong Kong’s best musical talent. In addition to Clockenflap, Magnetic Asia – the festival’s promoter and organiser – also runs regular music shows throughout the year under the YourMum banner.
2016 sees the lineup reach unprecedented heights: The Chemical Brothers, Sigur Rós, José González, Yo La Tengo, Crystal Castles, Foals, Hyukoh, Juicyning, Badbadnotgood, Mad Professor, Shura and Birdy Nam Nam, just to name a few.
But while music is at the core of the festival, Clockenflap is about much more, with stages and areas dedicated to film, visual art, performance art, arts & crafts and family activities. The city’s most happening bars and restaurants bring pop ups to be part of the action, amid interactive installations from art & design trailblazers and a fine selection of curated experiences.
FILM
Since the dawn of Clockenflap, the film tent has been the cloaked rabbit hole for the curious to escape the hustle and bustle of the festival and enter into new worlds of audio-visual imagination. Headsets are made available as audiences enter “Cinema Silenzio” and leave the world behind for the screening programme.
SILENT DISCO
The now infamous Silent Disco, has become an absolute favourite at the festival. Festival goers grab a pair of free-to-loan headphones, and gaze on at the stunning Hong Kong skyline as they disappear into a world of late-night tunes in the wonderful outdoors.
CLOCKENCRAFT MARKET
HK’s finest indie craft crew, Handmade Hong Kong, curates the Clockencraft Handmade market. An opportunity to peruse HK’s finest, creative do-it-yourself-ers and take home unique, made-with-love items while supporting the growing local independent scene.'
FOOD
Catering to all budgets and tastes, Hong Kong’s hip and happening foody and boozy venues bring their goods out for the festival. From vegan offerings to Mexican favourites, the selection is vast and fun.
ART
FUTURE HUMAN – An Essential Narrative
A menagerie of visual, audio and performance art awaits at the 2016 event. The Clockenflap arts programme, juxtaposes some of the most exciting emerging, and established local and international artists, all within an outdoor family-friendly music festival context. The festival format honours the avant-garde with skillful, experimental and innovative art forms spanning visual arts, performing arts, film and animation. Local and international artists are invited to respond to the 2016 theme: FUTURE HUMAN – An essential narrative. With Hong Kong, a city in constant transition, as the canvas, Clockenflap 2016 brings into focus what it means to be human in the digital age, and to dialogue at the interface of art, technology and society. Audiences are increasingly demanding of immersive and visceral experiences, and Clockenflap delivers on all fronts. Arts range from the contemplative and transformative, spectacular and surreal, to the light hearted and playful. Large format installations, architectural pavilions, kinetic sculptures, virtual reality, film, animation, theatre and mobile live performances, all await over the three-day weekend.
