Saturday 5th July 1pm – 7pm
Sunday 6th July 10am – 6pm
Story: Tim Neal, Friends of Abbeyfield Park
This year the Abbeyfield Park Multicultural Festival is running over a whole weekend. The Tour de France will be passing close to the park on Sunday 6th of July and the park is an official Tour de France spectator hub.
Due to the road closures in place it was agreed the festival would also run on the Saturday 5th of July allowing everybody to enjoy the event over the weekend.
The format for the two days is similar – the main difference being that on the Sunday there will be live relay of the race on a large screen set up on the lower football pitch in the park.
Abbeyfield Park Multicultural Festival
The festival starts at 1pm on Saturday with the community stage active from 2pm. There is a wide variety of acts ready to perform over the two days and along with the Culture Corner (Isus sound system and Sama Roots sound playing roots and culture from 1pm), both days promise great music.
The Saturday event closes at 7pm.
On both days the usual wide variety of stalls will be in place and information points, health stalls, children’s entertainment, local stall holders and necessary facilities will be available.
The Tour de France in Abbeyfield
Sunday 6th July is the Tour de France of course and the Park will be open from 10am. The riders are expected to pass along Minna Road around 2 to 3pm and we’re expecting people to be coming back and forward from the race over the course of the day.
In celebration of the Tour specially commissioned art activities will take place in the Park. Saturday sees Crazy Bunting workshops (Art in the Park and Panni Loh) and a variety of circus skills will animate the Park (Greentop), there are also films showing on the big screen in place for the Tour; while Sunday sees Puppetry and cycling (Patrick Amber) and Tour de France inspired local films (Martin Currie).
On Sunday the event closes at 6 pm.
Community stage
The community stage will be hosting 7 acts on Saturday and another 9 on Sunday including up to 5 bands, something new for the festival. We have Young Music who aim to promote unsigned young people. They have a three hour slot programmed on both days. We also have some key bands for example Bongo and the Soldiers with the original percussion player from Reverend and the Makers; we are also pleased to have Jungle Ivy who have included our festival in their busy touring schedule.
A great weekend lies in store.