Shangri-La Glastonbury (2025)

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Client: Shangri-La
Commissioner: Trigger Stuff
Location: Covent Garden, London, United Kingdom

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Date: 2025-04-22 00:00:00 +0000 UTC
Tags: Steel, Reuse, Sustainable, Digital Design, Detailing, Fabrication

Shangri-La Glastonbury

Unveiled at Glastonbury Festival 2025 in the heart of Shangri-La, the iconic PoliNations trees returned in a striking new form — as a shrine to love, loss and land, anchoring this year’s theme: The Wilding.

Originally commissioned as part of UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK, the towering 40-foot sculptures first transformed Birmingham’s Victoria Square in 2022 as part of PoliNations, a vast forest garden that celebrated biodiversity, cultural identity, and the beauty of difference. In 2025, these monumental tree structures were reimagined as the centrepiece of Shangri-La’s main stage area, reclaiming their role in shaping powerful public spaces.

For details of the original project, see the PoliNations project page

Set within the politically charged landscape of Shangri-La, the Trees came alive once more, not just as an installation but as a call to connection. A gathering point. A site of memory, hope, beauty and rage, echoing Trigger’s belief in the power of art to transform public space and shared experience.

The tree foundations, trunks and canopy frames were reused from the original event in Birmingham, with new projection-suitable fabric added to the canopies alongside an increased quantity of sound and lighting equipment. For the steel trunks, already repurposed for the original Birmingham event, this is a demonstration of how design for demountability can allow for repeated reuse.

As the event required clear space around the tree trunks, the Birmingham ballast-foundations were no longer suitable. Format worked with the team at Shangri-La and Glastonbury’s review engineers, Momentum, to enable a light-touch sleeper + screw-pile solution.

Photo Credits: PoliNations Trees by Trigger, at Shangri-La Glastonbury Festival 2025, captured by Giulia Spadafora

Project Team

Client: Shangri-La Glastonbury
PoliNations Client: Trigger Stuff
Designers: THISS Studio , Carl Robertshaw , Bronia Housman
Fabricators: SH Structures & XKX Projects
Engineering: Format Engineers

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