Electromagnetic Field (festival)

Electromagnetic Field
Overhead view of Electromagnetic Field 2018
Statusactive
FrequencyBiennially
CountryEngland
InauguratedAugust 2012 (2012-08)
FounderJonty Wareing, Russ Garrett
Most recent
16 July - 20 July 2026
Next event
2028
Participants3500
Filing statusNot for profit
Websiteemfcamp.org

Electromagnetic Field (also known as EMF, or EMF Camp) is a camping festival in the UK, held every two years, for hackers, geeks, engineers and scientists.[1][2] It features talks and workshops covering a wide variety of topics.[3] EMF is a non-profit event run entirely by a team of volunteers.[4]

Attendees of EMF receive an electronic conference badge, funded by sponsorship, which in 2014 included an LCD screen, Arduino-compatible microcontroller, and a radio transceiver.[5]

History

Electromagnetic Field 2014 at Night

The first Electromagnetic Field event was held in 2012 at Pineham in Milton Keynes, and completely sold out a 499-person capacity. Each tent at EMF 2012 was provided with power and, via a 2.5 km direct microwave link to a data centre[6], internet. The microwave link provided 370 Mbit/s[7] to the campsite. Over 50 speakers gave talks, including Ben Goldacre.[8]

In 2013, a smaller interim one-day event called Electromagnetic Wave was held in London on board the MS Stubnitz.[9]

The main event was held again in 2014 at Hounslow Hall Estate, Newton Longville (near Milton Keynes). Over 1,200 tickets were sold.[10] As with the 2012 event, internet was provided by a direct microwave link which provided 436 Mbit/s.[11] The entire event had over 100 talks, workshops and events with a separate track for children. Notable speakers included Tom Watson MP and Simon Singh.[12] In addition there were 45 'villages'[13] that ran their own workshops and events including silver smithing, wood turning and making stroopwafels.

The 2016 event was held on 5–7 August at Loseley Park, Guildford[14] with an attendance of over 1,600. A 1 Gbit/s internet connection was provided by fibre, and the on-site network had a 10 Gbit/s backbone.[15]

The 2018 Event was held at Eastnor Castle Deer Park in Herefordshire.[16][17] The 2018 Event debuted the Null Sector Night Club Area run by the fictional Polybuis Corporation.

The 2020 Event was cancelled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic,[18][19] but the event resumed in 2022.[20]

The 2022 Event[21] featured null sector in an saddle-span style tent as an underwater research facility staged in the north end of the site for the first time.

The 2024 Event[22] had the overall theme of Solar Punk and featured the Null Sector area as an open air night club, complete with lasers and flamethrowers on the dance-floor, the nightclub themed as "Polybuis Extraction Division" as a Quarry featured over 15 installations and a 400 capacity dance-floor, EMF solar punk fabric was made available for purchase after the event, the design was produced by artist Morag Hickman. It was announced during the infrastructure review that EMF owns 40 km of dark fibre from the site to an uplink Internet was provided by a 40Gbit/s fibre connection with 1Gbit/s ports being standard, and 10Gbit/s ports available per request[23].

The 2026 event had a theme of space.[24] A planetarium was introduced which showed a programme of attendee-artist led content as well as pre-programmed traditional space shows. Notable speakers included Robin Ince, Kate Devlin,Tim Hunkin and Sophie Harker, as well as a set from drum and bass DJ Venjent. The event included over 138 talks, 141 installations, 49 musical acts and 85 workshops.[25] The night club area Null Sector was themed as a spaceport set in the 2090s called "Polybuis GTN 4242" and featured 2 bars, a 800 person capacity dance-floor, over 20 installations and a new algorave and modular synth performance venue called "Trash Compactor" This ran workshops during the day and unscheduled attendee performances in the evening. A Music Stage (Stage D) was also introduced[25].

The 2028 event was announced in the closing ceremony[26] of the 2026 event to be returning to Eastnor Castle Deer Park.

List of events

No. Date Location Attendance Internet connection
1st 31 August – 2 September 2012[27] Pineham Park, Milton Keynes 499 370 Mbit/s (direct microwave link)
2nd 29-31 August 2014[28] Hounslow Hall Estate, Newton Longville, Milton Keynes > 1,200 436 Mbit/s (direct microwave link)
3rd 5-7 August 2016 Loseley Park, Guildford > 1,600 1 Gbit/s (fibre)
4th 31 August – 2 September 2018 Eastnor Castle Deer Park, Herefordshire 2,500 1 Gbit/s (fibre)[29]
24-26 July 2020 (cancelled) Eastnor Castle Deer Park, Herefordshire
5th 2-5 June 2022 Eastnor Castle Deer Park, Herefordshire[30]

2,800 [31]

 1 Gbit/s (fibre)
6th 30 May - 2nd June 2024 Eastnor Castle Deer Park, Herefordshire 3000 40 Gbit/s (fibre)
7th 16 July - 19 July 2026[32] Eastnor Castle Deer Park, Herefordshire 3500 40 Gbit/s (fibre)
8th 2028 Eastnor Castle Deer Park, Herefordshire TBC TBC

Badges

Badges from the 2014, 2016, 2018, 2022, 2024 and 2026 events
Badges from the 2014, 2016, 2018, 2022, 2024 and 2026 events. The 2026 badge includes the optional 'Keebdeck' keyboard hexpansion and four further hexpansions.
Tildagon badge from the 2024 event, with a hexpansion plugged in on top right

Each event, up to and including the 2024 event had a custom, programmable, battery-powered badge.

For the first event in 2012 the badge was named TiLDA, based on an ATMega 32U4 and was Arduino-compatible.

The 2014 badge (TiLDA MKe) was an Arduino Due-compatible badge. It was the first to come with an LCD, and all subsequent EMF badges included an LCD screen. It included Accelerometer and Gyroscope sensors, along with a long-range wireless transceiver.[33]

The 2016 badge was named TiLDA MK3, and dropped Arduino-compatibility for sake of Micropython. It was built around the STM32L4 microcontroller, and included a WiFi module, gyroscope and magnetometer.[34][35]

The 2018 badge (TiLDA MK4) included a SIM800 GSM module and T9 number keypad.[36]

The 2022 badge was renamed to TiDAL.[37] It was a badge in a USB-C thumbdrive format, with an LCD screen, a joystick, and various buttons.[38]

For 2024, the event debuted the Tildagon badge, planned to be used for all future events alongside hardware "hexpansion" boards. The Tildagon badge is based on an Espressif ESP32-S3 with 2MB of RAM and 8MB of storage.[39]

The 2026 badge, known as Spaceagon, featured a re-used 2024 backboard and screen along with a new frontboard and middleboard. These boards included a joystick, compass and touch-sensitive areas.[40] An optional keyboard hexpansion known as 'Keebdeck' was also available.

Synchronization with other events

In the years when Electromagnetic Field does not occur, Chaos Communication Camp (in Germany) and one of the Hack-Tic hacker events (in the Netherlands) occur alternately.

References

  1. ↑ Payne, Christian (3 September 2014). "Electromagnetic Field: the UK's Burning Man?". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 10 August 2026.
  2. ↑ Steadman, Ian (20 August 2012). "Inquisitive minds gather to camp out in the Electromagnetic Field". Wired. Archived from the original on 27 August 2014. Retrieved 26 August 2014.
  3. ↑ "EMF Camp talks". Archived from the original on 7 September 2012. Retrieved 2 September 2012.
  4. ↑ "Company Details - Electromagnetic Field". Archived from the original on 8 September 2015. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
  5. ↑ "Announcing TiLDA MKe, the incredible EMF 2014 camp badge". Electromagnetic Field Blog. 8 August 2014. Archived from the original on 6 June 2022. Retrieved 22 May 2019.
  6. ↑ "Geek camp comes to Milton Keynes". BBC News. 31 August 2012. Archived from the original on 11 April 2023. Retrieved 11 April 2023.
  7. ↑ "EMF Camp, the site and Networking". Electromagnetic Field Blog. 13 July 2012. Archived from the original on 13 May 2021. Retrieved 22 May 2019.
  8. ↑ "Electromagnetic Field 2012 - Electromagnetic Field". Archived from the original on 15 September 2015. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
  9. ↑ "Electromagnetic Wave". 14 May 2013. Archived from the original on 14 May 2013.
  10. ↑ Shaw, Dougal (2 September 2014). "Electromagnetic Field: Can geeks get kids into science?". BBC. Archived from the original on 3 September 2014. Retrieved 4 September 2014.
  11. ↑ "Megabits to a farm: Getting Internet to a hacker camp". Electromagnetic Field Blog. 23 August 2014. Archived from the original on 6 June 2022. Retrieved 22 May 2019.
  12. ↑ "Electromagnetic Field 2014 - Electromagnetic Field". Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
  13. ↑ "Villages - Electromagnetic Field 2022". wiki.emfcamp.org. Archived from the original on 7 October 2014. Retrieved 4 September 2014.
  14. ↑ @emfcamp (10 September 2015). "We're very excited to announce the date and location for EMF 2016" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  15. ↑ "Electromagnetic Field - Network configuration" (PDF). 16 June 2022. Archived (PDF) from the original on 11 April 2023. Retrieved 11 April 2023 – via GitHub.
  16. ↑ @emfcamp (8 August 2017). "If you enjoyed #SHA2017, why not come to EMF 2018, Aug 31 - Sep 2, 2018 in the lovely west of England. More info soon" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  17. ↑ @emfcamp (18 December 2017). "It's time to finally announce the location for EMF 2018: the lovely Eastnor Castle Deer Park in Herefordshire!" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  18. ↑ @emfcamp (22 May 2019). "We can now announce that Electromagnetic Field will return to Eastnor Castle Deer Park, Herefordshire next year: July 24th-26th, 2020" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  19. ↑ "Electromagnetic Field 2020 is cancelled". 25 March 2020. Archived from the original on 26 March 2020. Retrieved 25 March 2020.
  20. ↑ "Electromagnetic Field Returns: 2nd-5th June 2022". 3 June 2021. Archived from the original on 18 May 2023. Retrieved 10 April 2023.
  21. ↑ "Electromagnetic Field 2022". Electromagnetic Field. Retrieved 10 August 2026.
  22. ↑ "Electromagnetic Field 2024". Electromagnetic Field. Retrieved 10 August 2026.
  23. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 18 July 2026. Retrieved 18 July 2026.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  24. ↑ "2026 Theme Announcement". Electromagnetic Field Blog. 28 November 2025. Retrieved 10 August 2026.
  25. 1 2 "Schedule". Electromagnetic Field. Retrieved 10 August 2026.
  26. ↑ Team, E. M. F. (19 July 2026). Closing Ceremony. Retrieved 10 August 2026 – via media.ccc.de.
  27. ↑ "EMF Camp 2012 - Nottinghack Wiki". Archived from the original on 8 January 2019. Retrieved 7 January 2019.
  28. ↑ "EMF Camp 2014 - Nottinghack Wiki". Archived from the original on 8 January 2019. Retrieved 7 January 2019.
  29. ↑ "Electromagnetic Field - Network configuration" (PDF). 16 June 2022. Archived (PDF) from the original on 11 April 2023. Retrieved 11 April 2023 – via GitHub.
  30. ↑ List, Jenny (5 July 2022). "Hacker Camps Post-Pandemic, Electromagnetic Field 2022". Hackaday. Archived from the original on 14 July 2022. Retrieved 14 July 2022.
  31. ↑ "Event Management Plan" (PDF). GitHub. 14 May 2024.
  32. ↑ https://social.emfcamp.org/@emf/statuses/01K0M687FG89BJN0EWGG45XWBE
  33. ↑ "TiLDA MKe - EMF Badge". badge.emfcamp.org.
  34. ↑ "TiLDA Mkπ: The Hackable Conference Badge That..." 23 June 2016. Archived from the original on 23 June 2016.
  35. ↑ "TiLDA MK3 - EMF Badge". badge.emfcamp.org.
  36. ↑ "TiLDA MK4 - EMF Badge". badge.emfcamp.org.
  37. ↑ "TiDAL - EMF Badge". badge.emfcamp.org.
  38. ↑ "TiDAL badge flyer" (PDF).
  39. ↑ "Tildagon". tildagon.badge.emfcamp.org.
  40. ↑ "Spaceagon". tildagon.badge.emfcamp.org.

52°02′20″N 2°22′37″W / 52.039°N 2.377°W / 52.039; -2.377

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