The University of the Highlands and Islands will be setting up campus at the Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival again this year as one of the event’s main sponsors. Festival-goers are invited to find out more about their local university by dropping into the UHI marquee in the Walled Garden where staff and students will be running a range of fun, interactive activities.

Beauty and complementary therapy students will help revellers to “glamp-it-up” with free mini-treatments, including massages, nail painting and festival face art. The students will also create the make-up for the Ciao Bella fashion show.

Used to muddy conditions, the university’s archaeologists will be in on the action too. The academics are challenging festival-goers to identify a mystery find, with a prize for the best interpretation. Attendees can also bring along their own mystery objects for identification in an “artefacts roadshow.”

The archaeologists will also be taking part in an interactive debate where they will be pitted against the university’s historians to argue who is best. The “If History is Bunk, Archaeology is Junk” event takes place at 2pm on Friday in the Verb Garden tent.

Students from UHI’s popular and traditional music courses will be making their Belladrum débuts on the Seedlings Stage over the weekend. Inverness indie-rockers City in Surveillance perform at 12:15pm on Friday and Taghta, a traditional five-piece who met while studying in Benbecula, play at 12:15pm on Saturday.

The university’s psychologists will use tricks to show how drugs and alcohol can affect people’s mood and reactions and its science, technology, engineering and maths team will be running fun experiments and helping festival-goers to make and launch paper aeroplanes.

The university is also offering festival-goers the chance to win two tickets for Belladrum 2013 through a photo competition. Details can be found on UHI’s Facebook page from the start of the festival.

Speaking about the university’s presence at the event, UHI marketing manager Margaret Antonson said: “Belladrum is one of the Highland and Islands biggest events so it’s a fantastic opportunity for us to showcase some of the courses and research initiatives that are going on at our campuses across the region. Our staff and students will give people an interactive and engaging insight into who we are and what we offer.”

Festival organiser Joe Gibbs said: “We are thrilled that UHI are back on board with Bella this year and we urge each and every festival-goer to visit the UHI Walled Garden next weekend. From free treatments from beauty therapy students to hands-on, interactive workshops with the ‘UHI Lab’ and ‘Artefacts Roadshow’, it’s an absolute must visit. It’s also a great opportunity for the large number of school leavers who attend Bella to find out more about the fantastic further education opportunities there are, here on their doorstep with UHI.”

Belladrum takes place on 3 and 4 August at Beauly, near Inverness.

Artists appearing will include Travis, The Wombats, We Are Scientists, The South, Frightened Rabbit and Beverley Knight. For more information, visit

www.tartanheartfestival.co.uk

Source: UHI