Cabinet Member for Leisure Sport and Culture Cllr Martin Mullaney is in a festive mood as he reflects on two huge Birmingham success stories.
So many things make me proud of being from Birmingham, our industrial and architectural heritage, the wealth of culture past and present, our wonderful parks, the Spitfire, the Mini, Duran Duran… I could go on.
A relatively recent addition to that list has to be the magnificent Moseley Folk Festival. Now in its fifth year, the event is a real success story and looks set to be a fixture on our cultural calendar for years to come.
I attended this year’s event at the weekend and, at the risk of gushing, it was a wonderful magical experience.
Everything was perfect. We had a wonderful setting; great range of bands from folk to the occasional diversion into indie music; quality food; the way the park was dressed was beautiful; the audience was perfect with families and a wide age range from teenagers to pensioners; a great shopping centre (Moseley) with great pubs and cafes next door.
What Moseley Folk Festival proves is that you can have a music festival that doesn’t upset the neighbours with loud noise.
I can’t praise the organisers enough and believe the festival could offer a blueprint for other music festivals in our parks across Birmingham.
This weekend we move onto another event that does the city proud: ArtsFest – the largest FREE arts festival in the UK.
Every year, this celebration of the astounding wealth of creative talent from across the West Midlands attracts tens of thousands of visitors to venues across the city centre. Last year saw over 270,000 people from communities across Birmingham and the wider region enjoying a wide range of activities.
Inspired by the UitMarkt festival in Amsterdam, ArtsFest was created in 1998 to ‘excite and intrigue audiences’ through showcases of the forthcoming autumn season and examples of the sheer magnitude of what was on offer by local artists year round.
All the events in the festival are free, so visitors don’t need to pre-book to attend. So head for the city centre for everything from ballet to Bhangra and dub poetry to indie rock.
So whether you regularly attend the arts and are looking for a little inspiration, or simply want to give the arts a try – ArtsFest will have something for you! So why not come along to ArtsFest 2010 and see for yourself.
I hope to see you all at ArtsFest – click here for this year’s programme.
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