Bewdley Festival, the annual multi-arts Festival that takes place in the North Worestershire town every October, launched its new website on Thursday 18th June.
The website includes an innovative new feature showcasing the thirty-two consecutive years of events with programmes to view of every year plus video footage from over the years including a film of the very first Festival in 1988.
Bewdley Festival are asking Festival Friends and others to put their memories of events and favourite artists on to the site in order to build a full history of the Festival.
There is also the streaming of a video featuring last years’ first Festival Roots Weekend, the highly successful “American Epic” weekend, created and filmed by the DRP Group Head of Film Carl Timms.
Bewdley Festival has been watching developments regarding the pandemic whilst hoping they could continue with this year’s Festival as planned. Unfortunately, all the signs are that there will not be any immediate lifting of the social distancing rules or any changes that will allow gatherings of large numbers of people to take place in doors.
With this in mind, plus concern for the safety of customers, volunteers and the artists who would be performing, Bewdley Festival Committee & Trustees have sadly reached the decision that they have no alternative but to reschedule this year’s Festival. It is felt to be important that they make this decision now so that artists can be informed, costs can be managed and the Festival can plan positively for the future.
The new website features the planned programme for this year. However, similar to arts events all over the country, the Festival has decided it makes sense to reschedule for a year and so the programme has been moved to October 2021 (8th – 18th).
The 2nd Festival Roots prelude Weekend was planned to feature English Roots this year. Opportunities for street events as well as concerts, lectures, films etc were in place but, as with the main Festival, this will be rescheduled to 2021.
Opening night for the evening events was to be Fairport Convention as part of their 50th Anniversary Tour, other confirmed artists were Dom Joly, Lemn Sissay, Tom Watson, Miranda Krestovnikoff, Cerys Matthews, Ronnie Scotts All Stars, The Peatbog Faeries whilst American comedian Rich Hall concluded the evening events on the final Saturday.
Daytime events included RSC actor Michael Pennington performing his acclaimed one-,man show “Sweet William”, naturalist Stephen Moss, Carole Boyd (Linda Snell in The Archers), Michael Mears, writer Tom Holland, two perennial favourites Max Keen and Lesley Smith, whilst for the family Aardmann Production with some special workshops and also TV scientist Greg Foot. The daytime programme concluded with the Allegri String Quartet.
Bewdley Festival are now working on ideas to create some on-line Festival programmes that they could deliver over the coming months. It is important to keep the Bewdley Festival brand alive during this period and whilst doing so provide some high quality entertainment.
