Newsletter No. 4
The countdown to the 2019 festival has now started in earnest with a week to go until opening night. Ticket sales have been very strong and are now going fast, so don’t delay if you haven’t purchased yours yet. The festival box office operated by the Apex will close at midnight on Wednesday 10th July and will reopen on the festival site on Friday 12th July where a limited number of tickets will be available for sale. The festival site will open to visitors at 1pm on Friday 12th July – please follow the stewards directions on arrival and don’t block the carpark or access routes on the neighbouring leisure village. The sun is shining in Ely and the festival site conditions are perfect.
Morris On!
If you are local to Ely, you may have heard about the recent efforts by the local council’s market company to stop the Saturday morning morris procession from dancing through the market, which would have made it very difficult to route the procession. Luckily, the residents of Ely rose up in arms (or should that be morris hankies) at the loss of this great colourful local event and the council bowed to pressure and reversed their decision. Good news! Morris dancing is a really important part of Ely Folk Festival, and not only do the hard working morris dancers put on a colorful spectacle in the city centre, but they also collect a considerable amount of contributions on behalf of the festival’s chosen local charity – this year it is Care Network Cambridgeshire. The morris dancing programme for the festival weekend can now be downloaded from the website - Morris programme 2019
Ales & ciders
Fil our bar manager has advised that beer prices in the bar are frozen for 2019 – good news for beer drinkers. Fil has sourced a wonderful selection of local beers and ciders for the weekend – see a small sample from the list below. The full list is available on our website - elyfolkfestival.co.uk/traders/. There will also be a selection of wines, spirits & soft drinks on sale at the bar. To help us make Ely Folk Festival greener and reduce use of plastic, it would be great if visitors remembered to pack their own drinks tankard to use at the festival.
Heavenly Matter; Sundowner; Regenerator; Golden Fox; Sid; Son of Sid; Bee Sting; Muckcart Mild; Dionysus; Minerva; Kiwi Kick; Release the Chimps; Lonely Snake; Zege; Hare’s Hopping….and lots more
Kids’ Stuff
Remember that on Sunday 7 July, a FREE drop-in festival decoration-making workshop for kids will be run at Babylon Gallery along Ely riverside between 1-3pm in conjunction with Re-imagine Resource Centre in Ely and Babylon Arts. The decorations will be made from purple and white materials used in the recent suffragettes march in London. The workshop promises to be fun and it will be great to see the creations on display on the festival site the following weekend. Details here https://www.babylonarts.org.uk/gallery/view,ely-folk-festival-themed-free-workshop_22390.htm.
We have posted up the kids’ festival programme of events on the website - Kids' festival programme 2019. Watch out for our ‘Name the festival dog’ competition for younger festival visitors this year!
Festival site
The plans for brightening up our festival site are well in hand now; so watch out for colourful and creative artistic interventions around the site – all made from recycled materials. We owe a huge vote of thanks to Ruth Marley from Ely-based resource centre Re-imagine for all her creative and practical input to our endeavours to brighten up the site this year It would be great to get your feedback on whether it enhances your Ely Folk Festival experience.
Looking ahead
…to the 2020 festival (the 35th Ely Folk Festival!)…and initial acts booked (stc) include Show of Hands; Midnight Skyracer; Daoiri Farrell; and Hannah Sanders and Ben Savage. It is not too early to buy your 2020 diary and get the date in…10-12 July 2020.
Thanks and enjoy!
Thank you to all who have supported Ely Folk Festival over the last year. And to those planning on coming to the 2019 festival, we hope you have a fabulous festival experience. As usual, there will be feedback form available – we really value the feedback provided and use it in planning the subsequent year’s festival.
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading.
Ely Folk Festival Committee
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