Event Registrations Open!

Thank you so much for registering your first events! Please remember that if you want to be featured in our printed programme this year you need to submit your information before the end of February!

It is time to remember the past and celebrate a new beginning.

Today we are opening our 2016 Wantage Summer Festival event registrations.

To register your event fill out this form:
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/6Z9XXQK

Please read our Event Organiser Guide before submitting the form.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

On behalf of our Committee at Wantage Summer Festival we would like to thank you for your support this year and wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

This month we are starting to feature local venues that wish to participate in Wantage Summer Festival 2016. We have already met with the Vale & Downland Museum and the Shush Entertainment Venue (both featured on images below). Both venues will be featured on our website shortly but our aim is to showcase all available venue opportunities so that our local artists and groups can be inspired to organise an event there. If you have a venue which in your opinion could be used during our 2016 festival, please let us know. We are keen on helping our event organisers in expanding to new places in town so all your input will be greatly appreciated.

To register your venue please fill out this form: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/MQXVTFW.

October was a month of planning, process building and research for our team. We have found the right tools for the 2016 events and organised an updated road map of our work. We would love to share it with you to get you involved too! It’s a long infographic so please check it out at the end of this blog post or here, on our Facebook fan page. Thank you!

Meetings with other event organisers and with local schools

We would like to say a big thank you to the following organisations for taking time to meet us: Vale & Downland Museum, Shush the Entertainment Venue, Wantage Youth Council, King Alfred’s Academy and Charlton Primary School. We have many more meetings scheduled and we will always find time for you. Please get in touch if you want to discuss the 2016 Festival with us or would like to get involved.

We want to meet and interview YOU! We can also feature your venue!

We have mentioned this in our open meetings – we are dedicating a lot of time to meet all past event organisers, festival participants and fans. We have already met a few Festival friends and we will publish interviews on our blog shortly. In the meantime we would love to plan new chats and interviews so please get in touch if you want to meet informally or if you want us to feature you on our website.

Can you help?

As we are researching the past of our Festival we are trying to reconstruct all past programmes, but we have no records from 1999 and 2000. Please, please, please let us know if you happen to have a copy of our Programme from those years! Thank you!

This month we have been researching past Festivals, meeting and interviewing members of Wantage community and preparing our website for 2016 events. We are starting to plan our next Festival so stay tuned as we will need you to listen – we will start collecting information which will help YOU promote your work, venue and events.

Meetings with other event organisers and with local schools

We are extremely grateful to all other local event organisers who met us already and expressed amazing support to our summer plans. You are all great and we hope to be able to help your events too.

We are super excited about our meetings with local schools. One of your main concerns was the engagement of younger audiences and it is very important for us too – so we hope to build good relationships with all local schools. So far the response is brilliant!

We want to meet and interview YOU! We can also feature your venue!

We have mentioned this in our open meetings – we are dedicating a lot of time to meet all past event organisers, festival participants, and fans. We have already met a few Festival friends and we will publish interviews on our blog shortly. In the meantime, we would love to plan new chats and interviews so please get in touch if you want to meet informally or if you want us to feature you on our website.

If you have a venue which in your opinion could be used during our 2016 festival, please let us know. We are keen on helping our event organisers in expanding to new places in town so all your input will be greatly appreciated.

Can you help?

As we are researching the past of our Festival we are trying to reconstruct all past programmes, but we have no records from 1999, 2000 and 2001. Please, please, please let us know if you happen to have a copy of our Programme from those years! Thank you!

Welcome back! We hope you all had a great summer! 
Wantage Summer Festival Committee is also back to work. We had a great time at Ray’s Carnival and now we are starting our planning of 2016 event.

Meetings with the Wantage Town Council and the Grove Parish Council
We are really, really grateful for their support and hope that we will continue our partnership with them. We are very keen on engaging Wantage community but also all neighboring areas.

Your Feedback is Now Featured on our Website
We have collected all your feedback defining our Festival and added it to our website here. Here are just a few quotes: 

Open Meetings – thank you!

Wantage Summer Festival Committee would like to thank all our open meetings attendees for their participation, brilliant ideas and all great suggestions! We have collected them all in an online open notebook – which is very easy to use – so if you want to add your ideas and feedback please just click here. Please add your feedback to shape the future of our Festival!

Big thank you to the Wantage Town Council and the Grove Parish Council…

…for inviting us to their September meetings. We are really, really grateful for their support and hope that we will continue our partnership with them. We are very keen on engaging Wantage community but also all neighbouring areas.

Join WSF Facebook group!

Wantage Summer Festival community is now live on Facebook so if you want to connect with our Trustees, organisers, artists and other collaborators or simply let us know about events in the area, join this open group on Facebook here.

Wantage Summer Festival marked its 20th birthday on 15 July with an Open Mic evening at King Alfred’s Head, Market Square, Wantage.

The Open Mic session was held in the garden of the King Alfred’s Head.  Performers were Melobo comprising Howard Hill – bass, Graham Hubbard – melodeon, Charlotte Pascoe – oboe and guest fiddler, Justin Greenhalgh. Young singers Alice Macarthur and Isabelle Braun supported by their teacher,  Sarah Hobbs, delighted the crowd in turn with their gorgeous singing. The event also marked the launch of the Wantage Summer Festival cocktail and the Wantage Summer Melon Ball, drinks created by Stuart Cockwell, Manager of King Alfred’s Head.  Peter Kent, who is on the Wantage Summer Festival committee acted as official photographer for the event.

The Open Mic event followed the successful second open meeting which Sylwia Korsak and Linda Baines, co-chairs, Wantage Summer Festival led, to seek views of the community and participant and idea for 2016.  “Wantage Summer Festival is a community event that celebrates and showcases the amazing talents and skills of individuals, voluntary and community groups, artists, crafts persons and performers in Wantage, Grove and the surrounding villages”, commented Sylwia Korsak.  “So we need ideas and views of members, groups, organisations and businesses in the community and gather their ideas as we start to plan for Wantage Summer Festival which will be held in June/early July 2016”.  “We had a really good turnout at the open meetings”, added Linda Baines. “We’re thrilled with the suggestions and thoughts that we’ve received.  We’re still looking for ideas and those who weren’t able to attend the open meetings can add their suggestions and comments on this public notepad: http://etherpad.media.mit.edu/chTj4PoPuu.”

Wantage Summer Festival acknowledges the help and support of the performers, Howard Hill, Sarah Hobbs, Stuart Cockwell, King Alfred’s Head team and Jean and Peter Kent, without whom the Open Mic event would not have happened.

Wantage Summer Festival Committee would like to invite you for an Open Mic night to celebrate our 20th Anniversary. Is is planned for this Wednesday, 15th July evening at the King Alfred’s Head pub at 7pm – just after our second open meeting.

Please bring your guitars, songs and other ideas for a short performance and join the celebrations in this very informal format.  We have conformed few wonderful acts already but we have plenty slots left! Wantage Summer Festival is a platform supporting other local events but since we are not running this year this is just a little something to mark the occasion.

And if the Open Mic is not tempting enough why not join us just to try the pub’s new drink launching the very same evening – named specially for us ‘Wantage Summer Festival’.

We would like to use this opportunity to thank the new pub manager and all our kind artists for their input in planning of this evening. Your support is invaluable!

Please join us on our 20th Birthday and if you know any aspiring performers please let them know about the Open Mic!

Thank you!

Wantage Summer Festival Committee would like to remind you about the invitation you to our open meetings at the King Alfred’s Head pub – the first one is already this week, on Wednesday at 7pm. The second one is planned for the following week, Wednesday, the 15th July, 6pm.

Both meetings are designed to collect all your feedback and ideas so we won’t be just sitting and chatting – we will work on specific areas of our Festival in hope that we can learn from many of you who participated in it in the past and those of you who want to contribute to our future events. We will make the most of our time so the meetings won’t last too long.

Next Wednesday (15th of July) after our meeting we will also have time to connect and celebrate the 20th Anniversary of our Festival. We have a special celebration (including open mic night in the pub’s garden and a special drink at the bar) so make sure you don’t miss out!

Please join us to shape the future of our Festival and to celebrate its 20th Birthday!

Time: Wednesday, 8 July 2015 at 7pm (to RSVP click here) and on Wednesday 15 July at 6pm (to RSVP click here)

Venue: the Kind Alfred’s Head pub.