Help make 10th Festival the best ever

WESTBURY Festival returns for its 10th year this autumn and organisers want local people to get involved and help make it the best ever.

The popular and growing festival is set to run from 22nd September to 7th October, and preparations have already started to make sure there’s plenty on offer to suit all tastes.

The festival committee is hoping to raise money from grant funding and wants the views of local people to help the festival’s case.

Chairman Ian Cunningham says, “Each year we rely on generous support from local businesses, free services or little charge from many artists taking part and a bit of luck. Plus, of course, none of our organisers are paid for the work. But as the festival has grown, the shoestring budget has meant that nailing down a programme is hard – commitment to some of the basic expenditure is difficult ahead of funds meaning that we sometimes are rather late with our plans.

“This year the festival committee hopes to make a bigger effort to get some grants. To help us with this, we would like to hear from any supporters.

“If you enjoyed an event or felt your group benefitted from the festival in the past it would be wonderful if you could drop us a line to say so. We are particularly interested to hear if you saw or did something new, or were able to attended something because it was free or cheap.

“If you just think that a town like Westbury should have something like our festival, that would be great to hear, too!

“We hope to run another series of free lunchtime concerts in All Saints Church but, again, setting this up is far from free so grant aid would really help us.”

The committee also wants to hear from local groups who are interested in performing or helping to run an event at the festival.

For more information contact the committee via secretary@westburyfestival.org.uk or write to Ian at chair@westburyfestival.org.uk or Bridge House, Westbury Leigh, BA13 3SH. If you’d like to be a sponsor of the festival, an event or advertise in the brochure, email sponsorship@westburyfestival.org.uk