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Most festival-goers arriving at the start of the Culture Collide festival (running October 4-7) will assume they’ve got the chance to catch the event’s first performances. But they’ll be wrong.

The festival actually kicks off the day before … somewhere between New York and Los Angeles … on an aeroplane … that’s flying at cruising altitude … on an one-of-a-kind “I’m With the Band” airline flight.

Passengers on board Virgin America Flight 409 – departing JFK at 11.30am and arriving at LAX at 2.40pm – will be treated to a number of “intimate” live performances (what other kind are there on an aeroplane?!). We’re not sure how many there’ll be, but rumour has it Kevin Barnes and School of Seven Bells will play DJ sets, and Penguin Prison will play an acoustic set.

At the time of writing, seats were still available. According to Filter Magazine, (they’ve jointly organised the flight with Virgin America) those passengers lucky enough to score seats on the flight also get a four-day pass to the festival. It looks like the fare hasn’t been put up, so to us that seems like a real bonus!

We can’t help but wonder about a couple of things though. Which end of the plane will performances take place? Business Class or Economy? And what will regular passengers think about the live music on their flight (there’s no note on the Virgin America website alerting passengers to the unique nature of the flight)? We suspect there will be one or two who’d rather not be flying with the band …


Written by insider city guide series Hg2 | A Hedonist’s guide to…

About the author

Brett AckroydBrett hopes to one day reach the shores of far-flung Tristan da Cunha, the most remote of all the inhabited archipelagos on Earth…as to what he’ll do when he gets there, he hasn’t a clue. Over the last 10 years, London, New York, Cape Town and Pondicherry have all proudly been referred to as home. Now it’s Copenhagen’s turn, where he lends his travel expertise to momondo.com.

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