Major Swedish festival to hold IVF stage: “Music improves the fertilisation rate”
The Swedish music festival, Way Out West, has detailed an innovative plan to help the fertilisation process by teaming up with an IVF clinic.
The project has been named the Future Fan Stage, but it will not be taking place directly on the festival site. Instead, as announced by Way Out West and musician Love Hultén, who has crafted the stage which will play live recordings from the festival to sperm and eggs in the Eliva IVF clinic in Stockholm as they prepare to enter vitro fertilisation.
While this sounds like a bizarre marriage, recent research suggests that it could lead to extraordinary results and successful IVF treatment. In the announcement video for the scheme, the festival proclaimed how “recent studies show that music improves the fertilisation rate during an IVF process” and now they are set to test that theory.
Dagan Wells, an Oxford University fertility expert, spoke to the Daily Mail in 2013 about the importance of “a very dynamic environment” for embryos, and explained how music could play a role in creating a similar setting. “The vibrations caused by music may stimulate this effect. One might speculate that techno music, with its pounding bass beat might do the best job of all,” she said.
If electronic music is as beneficial as the expert suggests, the line-up at Way Out West will offer no shortages. Dance acts confirmed to appear in Gothenburg include Fred Again, Overmono, Barry Can’t Swim, Chase and Status and Peggy Gou. Meanwhile, Queens of the Stone Age, Jessie Ware, The National, The Smile, PJ Harvey, Loyle Carner, Pulp and Yard Act are also set to perform.
In a statement, the festival said of the fertility scheme: “To stay relevant, new fans are crucial. New generations of fans are vital for keeping both artists and music festivals alive and kicking. This year, we’ve added an additional stage to help create future fans of great music by ‘injecting’ live recordings by the headlining artists into their DNA at the earliest stage possible—before they even develop into fetuses.”
Meanwhile, Hultén said of her role in the project: “When they first approached me with the IVF stage project I knew I was all in. The Future Fan Stage was already an amazing concept in theory and had a lot of interesting design aspects. Combining elements from the lab world with music stage visuals was challenging and fun. For the future fans of Way Out West!”
Queens of the Stone Age are set to make their live return at Way Out West on August 8th after cancelling a set of European dates for July due to frontman Josh Homme requiring medical treatment.
The ban explained: “QOTSA regret to announce that Josh Homme must return to the United States immediately for emergency surgery. Every effort was made to push through and play for you, but it is no longer an option to continue.”
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