~$ Electromagnetic Fields v2(026)
Posted on Aug. 7th, 2026. | Est. reading time: 13 minutes
Tags: ConferenceTravelVolunteeringChaos Events
looking at the hotspots for where i’ve been for any given time and where i’ve had a lot of fun would undoubtedly unearth a variety of interesting locations which - on paper, without any context - would look completely absurd. one of those absurd locations is Eastnor Deer Park, near Ledbury, in the UK.
back in 2024, i attended Electromagnetic Field for the first time and had a blast (you can read about that here) and so - this time - i was motivated to spend a bit more time in that field.
EMF2026 - on paper - is an event that started on July 16th and ended on July 19th… and this is why i made it to that field on July 10th, 6 days before the event was due to start.
Outline
travel
my travel arrangements were effectively the same in 2026 than in 2024, with the exception of my flight going from Zurich to Manchester instead of Birmingham, which doesn’t make a lot of sense on a map but made a whole lot more sense on my wallet.
i had originally planned to use my Interrail to go from Zurich to Brussels-Midi (probably via Köln or Luxembourg), then take the Eurostar to London and then a train up to Ledbury.
the available bookings for the Eurostar (and price of TGV reservations if going via Basel to Luxembourg) would however make this a 2 day trip (without delays) requiring that i also find some lodging, all with about 35 kilograms of kit.
this was suboptimal, and i decided to book a flight to Birmingham… and then accidentally booked the flight to Manchester instead because i somehow ended up switching both cities in my head.
this ended up being a good thing though, as although this required 90 more minutes of train either way, the experience of using Manchester Airport was significantly less exhausting than going through Birmingham two years ago.
i ended up the first of our village to arrive, and therefore broke ground for the glorious nation-state of Glastonledburyshire-on-Severn.
building the event
my arrival this year was one day earlier than for EMF2024, but this year’s 6 days felt much longer than last event’s 5 days.
there’s a few reasons for that, one of which being that last EMF the weather was… wet (which is why EMF2024 was nicknamed “Excessively Muddy Field”), whereas this years weather was blisteringly hot and sunny. there is a very noticeable difference between 6 sunny days at UV index 7 and 28 degrees celsius versus 5 wet days at UV index 1-2 and 22-25 degrees celsius.
this time, i resumed my activities with the NOC which, as per usual, involved me running around a field and putting switches and equipment in DK’s. one thing was different however, whereas last time it had effectively been my first time doing a full rotation at the NOC for an event, this time most people there knew me and trusted me to handle the deployment of equipment.
this is how i ended up being the one to manage the installation of the NOC DC’s UPS (backup power supply), and how, a day or so later, i was given the task to deploy all of the DK’s - and upstream wiring, where possible - in the North of the field in the morning, and ended up also deploying all of the DK’s in the South field that very same late afternoon / evening (once the temperature had started to cool down).
if you look at the map of the event below, that is every single blue rectangle, with the North vs. South divide being the road named Dipole Hill.
i also ended up participating in the construction of all of the DK poles on site, which took quite a bit of time one evening to get sorted.
once we were fully done with the final preparations came the time to actually deploy the poles to the already installed datenklo’s. this would involve a few of us on a team driving out a small diesel vehicle called a gator to the various dk’s and try to slot them in vertically, despite some of these dk’s already having been provisioned and therefore being full of stuff.
lo and behold, i decided to forego the one recommendation in the book with regards to operating gators in the vicinity of structures (namely: do not), and opted to expertly reverse straight into the datenklo on multiple occasions. not a single actual collision between the gator’s rear bumper and a datenklo was observed, which doesn’t actually say much about my driving, but certainly says a lot about my approach to efficiency.
after the dk poles were installed, we just had a few more equipment runs to do, often involving the deployment of a structure or stage that we hadn’t yet been able to setup due to it not existing yet at the time.
this involved a bit of back and forth, including one or two rides caught on the local taxi service while pulling a cart full of kit.
but all this effort was worth it, as on day -1, the NOC was already mostly operational and all that was needed was to push the bits out into the field.
camp
at this point, my descriptions of camps are pretty monotonous, despite the happenings at camp being all but.
this time had a few interesting things happening, namely the presence of my village our glorious nation-state of Glastonledburyshire-on-Severn, all with its own border force, a lot of “road” signage, and most importantly a big flag.
although effectively being a shitpost involving a large group of friends coming from all around the world, we ended up being one of the largest villages on site (if not the largest).
the main thing about this village beyond being with friends was that we were making fun of nationalism by being this so-called nation-state, eternally at war with Bodgeham-on-Wye‘s parish council (who are known to be hiding nuclear submarines in the River Wye, and was rumoured to have printed a very libellous gazzette during the event).
it did get a bit out of hand, with war being brokered with my good friends at Milliways, the Scottish Consulate, and Freeside; as well as an unintentional physical capture the flag being started.
as for the rest of the event, i spent most of it bouncing between talks i wanted to see, friends i wanted to catch up with, new friends i wanted to get to know better, and the night life at EMF’s naughty corner (aka. NullSector), which this year had done their sound management so well that one could walk twenty or so meters downrange from it and not hear the music being played inside.
closing
with all of this going on, the three and a half days of the event went by in a blur, but i am ever thankful for everyone that took the time to chat with me or to hang out or go for walks around the field together.
teardown happened much faster than buildup, and i had packed my stuff and was on my way to Manchester once again on day 5, with a lot of happiness in my heart.
this community-led and community-driven event has a very good community, and this event ended up once more being one of the highlights of my year, and i’m saddened that it only ever happens every second year, and as such i can’t wait for 2028’s iteration.
i’m quite likely to go to whatever other events will be scheduled around Europe, namely 40c3 in December and maybe Chaos Camp and/or Bornhack next summer, but the first two don’t have as good of a community focus as EMF does, and the latter is quite smaller and i haven’t yet gone there.
