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2023 Update

    Thanks for your patience, and apologies for being so quiet…
    We’ve not been in hibernation since last October, but we’ve been working hard on gathering thoughts, ideas, and doing a review of what we can, and can’t achieve this year.

    The realities are that after a few difficult years (for everyone!), there are some things that need to change. Finances aren’t what they were, and it is no longer possible to sustain the festival in the manner that had previously happened. The festival started life in the Assembly Rooms and Guildhall Theatre, and moved into the marquee after the Assembly Rooms’ fire as a temporary measure. That was nine years ago, and continuing with an ad-hoc solution has obviously been even harder with the effects of lockdown.

    With all of that in mind, we’ve taken stock and decided that the best option (in terms of finance and time) is to scale back the event to being a “folk weekend”. We did this in 2019 when there was uncertainty about the availability of space and venues, but this time we want to use the time to look at how we can deliver the festival in a more sustainable way in the future.

    For this year, we’ll have concerts in The Old Bell Hotel Derby from Friday evening to Sunday evening, and these will be sold as a small number of “Weekend Tickets”, and then “Individual Concert Tickets” – giving people the opportunity to come to as little, or as much of the festival as they choose. Alongside this will be free music and dance on the streets of the Cathedral Quarter, allowing us to engage with not just those who are in the city for the festival, but those who might otherwise miss all of the fun we’ll be having!

    We’re going to be working on the line up, and will have the individual concerts in place as soon as possible – but, for now, we’ve got a fantastic price on a weekend of music for those who are able to trust us and book before we announce anyone! After that, we’ll release the remainder of standard weekend tickets and then the individual concert tickets.

    We’ll get the tickets on sale as soon as possible, and although this is a smaller event, we really need your support this year, to help us put on a great weekend and to build things back up for 2024.

    This year’s event will run from FRI 29 SEP to SUN 1 OCT. It will be in partnership with Derby LIVE, and supported by the very lovely Cathedral Quarter Derby. As with the last few years, there’s a huge debt of gratitude to all of the team at The Old Bell who throw the doors open for us. We really do appreciate all of the support.