In the 80's, I started building low-tech PA equipment for street performances out of bits of car audio and home stereo equipment from car boot sales. Having met the Mutoid Waste Company, I was inspired both by the idea of making things out of items other people had discarded, and also their philosophy of continuous creation/destruction, where yesterday's sculpture was included in the raw material for today's project.

The PA equipment was used for all sorts of low budget events, including a series of gigs outside the local Arts Centre at South Hill Park while most of it was closed for rewiring and campsite gigs at various folk festivals including Towersey.
In the early 90's I found a peculiar homemade mixing desk at a car boot, converted it to twelve volts and used it with some larger car amps for an official free event at SHP on the eve of Bracknell Festival, and a less official one in a farmers field near Bromyard.

By '96 we had a bicycle powered stage as part of Bracknell Festival with 200W of amplification powered by just one prototype pedal generator. As a finale we put on an 11 piece funk band powered by two strong cyclists in relays doing a number each!
Our stage was at the opposite end of the lawn to the main stage with a 20kW system; our acts were programmed into their changeover gaps. The arrangement worked very well - most of the time we were retaining about a third of their audience while running at less than one percent of their power.
The same system was very successfully used for a tour of the cafes at the Big Green Gathering, in spite of Cairo's attempts to retain us as their house system by bribing us with delicious food.

Our Pedal PA systems were also booked by Reading Council for their Cosmo and Dance All Day street events in '96 and '97.

In the 80's at Glastonbury I had the idea of building visibility towers out of polypropylene drain pipe, mainly as an aid to locating our camping area. At Glastonbury in '97 and the Big Green Gathering in '98 the idea was developed into a structure for a green energy powered light sculpture. It featured suspended rotating parts and dynamic illumination using LED's and strobe lights. Mark Pickthall took a time lapse photo of the BGG one. It's the best impression I've seen of one of these structures which are almost impossible to record photographically.
At the same event, we were suddenly inspired to try entering the structure in the Sunday afternoon procession. The idea almost worked but there was a problem with the gauge of fixing wire we were using. We made it half way round via three increasingly spectacular crashes. However, the structure was back up again that night with all its illuminations working, and by Northern Green Gathering we had a totally viable illuminated processionable icosahedron and a 6M tall tower mounted on Spot's electric scooter.

In 2000, bookings for the Children's Generators really took off; we did three street events for Kingston Council via Green Futures, and a stand at Devon County Show with the RIO (Recycling in Ottery) group as well as some local school events.

At Severn Revels in July we tried out a new design of plastic drainpipe sculpture, with an icosahedron suspended between three towers. There hadn't been time or space to try out the design properly beforehand, but luckily it worked well with the icosahedron rotating slowly in the wind on its recycled video head pivot.
When it was illuminated from below by a low energy fluorescent hidden in a bucket, the support towers were hardly visible and the icosahedron and the wind generator above it looked very impressive. (Thanks to Spot for the photos)

At the Big Green Gathering of 2000, we provided pedal powered sound support for the Children's Tent as well as developing the design for the low energy compost toilet lighting, but our main contribution was to the Saturday night time procession. An 8 Metre tall tower and a large icosahedron were used to support withy and tissue lanterns lit by renewable energy. These large structures were at the head and tail of the procession and in between was all sorts of stuff including giant illuminated puppets from the Spargestas and Des Kay's amazing laser and cymbal thing in which a struck cymbal is used as the deflection system for a laser pointer aimed at an overhead screen. It was also the first time we'd let loose several hub disc/LED twirly things in public, and the operators were mobbed by people asking what they were and where they could buy them! On the Sunday morning afterwards, Darran painted Tania's Sun Lantern to show it to better effect in the daylight.

In 2001, we did the first of a series of Woodcraft Folk events at their Activities Centre at Cudham.
Another new area to us was the Home Educators Seaside Festival to which we were introduced by Sw@rm. It turns out home educating parents are a very receptive group for our ideas they aren't so tied to a curriculum as schools. They're also much more familiar with the idea of making things out of junk, both through inclination and budget.
Thatcham Nature Discovery Centre near Newbury asked us to do two events, one on European Sun Day on 24th June, and an illuminated Winter Solstice procession on 21st December when a massive swarm of small 'bug' lanterns were paraded around the lake.
The Children's Generators were operated at many events including the Forest Gate Festival in East London in July.
The week after, we did a stall and renewable energy sound support for the 'Next Stage' at Reading WOMAD with Reading International Forum.
The next event also had a marked international flavour. At the Woodcraft Folk International Camp, we demonstrated pedal generator technology to groups from many different countries. It was an eye opener to see how many of the groups had already got small solar electric systems and solar heated showers in their camps, as well as the very small vehicle count on the site. At the end we provided pedal powered PA for their Global Summit.

In 2002, we did several new events. An interesting new one was a weekend in mid April in the Forest of Dean at Taurus Crafts Centre which is part of Campshill Trust.
We took a set of Children's generators and I did a talk on the Saturday night. Spot transported a collection of Coltek equipment which had missed our Pedal Power Day. As usual we were too busy to take any pictures but Cliff from Taurus sent us some good ones afterwards. In fact, they were so good most of them are in the Children's Pedal Generator page.
The next event was seven days at HES FES in mid May. We had started out with an ambitious plan to do pedal powered music as well as the first lantern procession of the year, but we couldn't get any sound crew. In fact it turned out to be quite enough of an effort to do the procession overcoming various difficulties such as the first of what turned out to be a series of major breakdowns of Spot's mobility scooter, and tents being flooded by torrential overnight rain.
Earlier in the week we ran Children's Pedal Generator sessions but later concentrated on building the support structures, running the lantern workshops and then wiring everything up for the Thursday night. We went right around the outside of the front campsite with an icosahedron and a tall tower with Rinky-Dink in between. A lot of the children made flat withy and tissue fish under Nelly's guidance. They worked well on the structure, twisting in and out of the light beams, and their flatness meant that they could be taken home afterwards unlike lanterns. Some of the children helped with the wiring as well, and the whole thing went off excellently with only one minor power disconnection and a bit of excitement when we had to unhook the tall tower from a tree.
As usual with HES FES there was quite a bit of web activity afterwards with parents and kids building their own hub disc things and small generators.

In June, we did the PA support for the Woodcraft Conference and National Gathering at Wortley Hall near Sheffield.
It was the first proper outing for the new high-tech Behringer desk. I gave Nelly a quick demo and she proceeded to do all the sound engineering for the event, including a couple of very hectic moments. On the Saturday morning we had to set up for 9.30am. It all went OK until we tried to do a short notice connection to a video, which sent the whole rig into ultrasonic oscillation, burning out a tweeter and damaging the amps. We managed to limp the system for the rest of the day but had to change to a backup amp rack shortly after starting up on Sunday morning. The problem looked quite serious at the time, but I had three amplifiers back in operation after rebuilding their power supplies in time for the next event.
Apart from the breakdowns and the hectic timescale, the event went well. Nelly made an excellent job of dealing with nervous speakers and sudden level changes, and Spot provided night time lighting for the marquee and solar power for the PA in spite of yet another collapse of his scooter's steering on the first night!

Aldershot Green Family Sunday on 14th July was another new one for us. There was a bit of mix-up over the booking, but once that was sorted, the rest went unbelievably smoothly. We had the best maps and directions ever, and the musicians were ideal for the system and very tolerant and appreciative. We did most of the event on solar power, chasing a patch of sun with Spot's big panel. At the end we lost the sun, but a couple of heavy metal fans with cans of Special Brew who'd looked like the only possible troublemakers there started pedalling maniacally.

A couple of years before we'd offered to take part in Bracknell Environment Fair, but they weren't interested which was a pity as it was so close to our main base we could move equipment there without a vehicle.
For the 2002 one we did a link up with the Bracknell Friends of the Earth group who were running a stall. We offered some Children's Pedal Generators as an extra attraction as well as a hub disc thing (see DIY pages) as a competition prize. All our equipment fitted onto a sack trolley which was handy as the event was on Car Free Day.
The pedal generators were a definite hit, particularly with the Mayor, and as a result we were asked by the Council to do some local Primary school projects.

At the end of September we did a day at Thatcham Nature Discovery Centre - it was good to do another event there after not having managed to fit them in earlier in the year,
Finally on 19th October I did a Hub Disc and DIY energy workshop at a Woodcraft Folk Skills Exchange Day. I'd taken a couple of children's generators as examples and of course a lot of the kids wanted to go on them but luckily some Woodcraft people were able to supervise while I got on with the workshop making twirly hub disc things.
 

The first event of 2003 was in January at Harmanswater Primary School in Bracknell.
We spent a morning with small groups from Year 5 trying out our pedal generators with various applications including the plasma globe, music keyboards and the ever popular binliner monsters. Here's what the Council's Town & Country Magazine said.

In April, we did a withy-and tissue workshop and a drainpipe tower at a Woodcraft Folk Skills Exchange Day at Guildford. Some of the kids built a tower using lengths of plastic drain pipe joined with gardening wire, and then we used it to display the discs made by others.

From 10th to 17th May we did Hes Fes in Dorset.

Later in May we were at what turned out to be the last (so far) Maidstone Green Fair. It was on a nice site in Mote Park with loads of space and a lake. We still had the SEASON dome on its way back to Hastings where it lives though the weather was so good we didn't need to use it much.

At the start of June we were at the Bath Wheel Thing, a "Cycle Circus Convention" put on by Cycles Maximus.

Later in June we demonstrated some Children's Pedal Generators at the Woodcraft Folk's Annual Gathering near Amersham.

We did our second Aldershot Green Family Sunday on 20th July. It's a nice and well organised event, with lots of stalls and entertainment inside Princes Hall, plus a tented music cafe in the park where we did a rare PA gig.

Next was Big Green Gathering where we did some workshops in spite of terrible weather at the start.

At the end of August, we were at the excellent Forest Festival at Swindon Old Town.

At the start of September we attended the Taurus Crafts Sustainable Futures Convention in the Forest of Dean near Chepstow

September was one of our busiest months and certainly had the best weather. From 13th to 20th was HES FES Part 2 in Dorset where we built solar powered illuminated towers from drain pipe and held withy and tissue lantern workshops.

In May of 2004 I did a workshop at Braziers Park in Oxfordshire to build a pedal power PA system for the Druid Network. Two pedal generators were started and later finished off in follow up sessions in my workshop. Independently they built a 12 Volt PA system which was all finished in time for a Seize The Day gig at that year's Druid Gathering. The PA system is documented on its own web site www.pedalpa.org.uk/

Later in May we operated Children's Pedal Generators at Kingston Green Fair again after a break of several years.

In June we were at Thatcham Nature Discovery Centre for a pedal energy demonstration which incorporated a spontaneous drumming session.

I'd been trying to do more local events and later in June put some Children's Generators on the bandstand in Bracknell Town Centre in support of the local Friends of the Earth group. The next week we were also involved in Bracknell Festival, including adding a solar powered binliner snake to the children's procession.

In August we participated in the new Earthwise Festival, a nice small spin-off from Big Green Gathering, where we put on a solar illuminated night lantern procession.

At the start of September we were at Swindon Forest Festival, actually a good one day green fair.

Later that month we did a day at Wildridings Primary School in Bracknell, and the final public event of the year in October was a slightly strange indoor pedal powered PA for the Aldershot Green Sunday.

During 2005 the Children's Generators continued to be popular. In June we took them to Thatcham Nature Discovery Centre; they had announced a workshop making insects out of recycled materials; beforehand I found a broken hedge trimmer and the legs from an old camp bed which inspired a nasty looking giant mosquito thing.
In July we were at the Woodcraft Folk's London Camp at Lurgashall in Sussex running LED Disc workshops.
In September we were at the Swindon Forest Festival again and later in the month helped Take Art run a community dance event on Minehead Beach with a pedal and solar PA system. 

We started 2006 early with a pedal power session for Bracknell Friends of the Earth in February in the town centre using a new binliner monster they'd made - we'd worn out the one they made for us in 2004. We also recorded a programme for BBC World Service Radio featuring a pedal powered Gameboy.
In April we ran our new iPod Booster in Swindon Town Centre for Active Swindon.
At the start of May we did a weekend cycle promotion event at Presteigne near Leominster.
Later we were at East Reading Adventure Playground with a slightly smaller set of equipment as the van had blown a head gasket on the way back from Presteigne and only had a small car to transport it.
At the end of May was Kingston Green Fair with inflatable binliner monsters and pedal powered piano.
A week later we were at Bath City Farm in much warmer weather than we'd had at Kingston.
At the end of June we did a week at HESFES on its new site at Mersea Island. we built a solar powered lighting tower activated by infrared aand ultrasound sensors.
Another week long event in August was the Woodcraft Folk/IFM Global Village camp, a gathering of 4000 children and 1000 adults from 50 countries. We were running pedal generator sessions alternately with workshops dismanting old computer printers and making LED windmills.
In September we were back in Swindon again, this time for the Forest Festival at Old Town Lawn in some slightly windy and damp weather.
Later in September I was at Bromyard Folk Festival with Jan's Blackboard Van. It was an opportunity to try out some different things including the latest rebuild of the passenger carrying trike.
There was a time when our events season used to end in September, but 2006 was the year things really started to move out into Autumn. On 1st October we did Rushmoor's indoor Green and Global Fun Day in Princes Hall in Aldershot.
A couple of weeks later on 14th October I did yet another outdoor event, the PLANED Energy Awareness Day at Llys-y-fran in Pembrokeshire. The weather was ideal including just enough wind for the wind generators but not enough to upset my awning which had to be anchored to two water containers as it was pitched on tarmac.

2007 was another year with an early start, but it didn't quite go as planned. I was booked to do a day at Kings Norton Primary School in Birmingham on 8th February, on the day that a lot of snow landed. The school was closed but we did manage to do some pedal power activity in a park in Handsworth instead.
By complete contrast, at the start of May I was in Aberystwyth for Aber Is Green on the sea front where it was very sunny. Some of the exhibits were in an old bandstand which was handy as it was too bright outside for LED displays. An excellent result for the street stuff outside was this lad who had some Welsh language hip-hop over a Morricone backing on his mp3.
Later in May we did a new Swindon event at Wootton Bassett Wood. There was more nice sun but the open playing field was too windy for binliner monsters.
At the end of May I was back at Llys-y-Fran again, this time for a 100th anniversary Scout Camp with the 1st Felindre and Newcastle Emlyn Scout Group. Part of their project was to 'light a beacon to the future of Scouting' and we persuaded them to do this by renewable energy rather than just lighting an old fashioned fire. The Scouts built an eight metre tall tower out of plastic drainpipe to support a disco flame light. The bright orange halogens in it were pedal powered for the ceremony, then it was left running overnight illuminated by LED's. The tower stayed up OK for three days in winds up to force 8, though an LED windmill attached to it was damaged and had to be rebuilt later on a new recycled desk fan. Apart from various pedal generator sessions, we also carried out practical sessions dismantling old computer printers, a base unit and some hard drives so that useful things like motors, gears and magnets could be recovered for use in later projects by the participants.
On 2nd June we did a small pedal generator session for Reading's Forbury Fever. All the equipment was moved to the park from a nearby car park to avoid actually bringing in a vehicle.
On 30th June we took part in Slough's Big Green Day Out. There was more or less continuous rain but fortunately the Council had provided a heavy duty gazebo which stood up to it well. The centre of Slough is a strange place featuring a bizarre stainless steel tree holding a wide range of metal birds.
Bracknell Big Day Out was on the same day as Live Earth, so we thought it was appropriate to do a zero-carbon event. Members of Bracknell Friends of the Earth helped move five pedal generators and their stall to South Hill Park Arts Centre using pedestrian trailers.
At the end of July we were at the last Big Green Gathering (or certainly the last one on the Fernhill Farm site and possibly the last for a few years). We were there on standard punter tickets but in spite of that finished up at the back of the Appropriate Technology tent helping fix up their solar panel system and the Rubbish DJ's sound system trolley. In between we did manage to look round the site a bit; here's a picture of some nice art oriented windmills.
While most of us were at BGG, one of our people took some Children's Pedal Generators to Reading's Museum of English Rural Life which was reopening on a new site.
On the Sunday of August Bank Holiday we were back at Thatcham Nature Discovery Centre for what was supposed to be their relaunch after renovation, but unfortunately most of the Centre was still closed due to flash flood damage from the previous month.
At the start of September we were at Ragged Hedge Fair, a nice small festival in Gloucestershire which had come back the previous year after a ten year break.
At the end of September we did an unusual booking at the Living Green Exhibition in St Margaret's Church in Wolvercote near Oxford. The space was very good with enough height for inflatable binliner monsters and dark enough for LED's and small light bulb displays to show up OK, a change from the previous outdoor events.
Finally from 19th to 21st October I ran workshops at Bowden House near Totnes to build a pedal generator which they hoped to use the next year for some teen projects.