Join us for the South Downs Folk Festival Jam on Friday 18th September at 7.30pm
Live via Facebook at SouthDowns Folk Festival Online Ukulele Jam
Everyone is welcome, and the music is available here:
Ukulele For The People Online Jam
Look forward to seeing you there.
Donations towards this event are appreciated! 50% of all donations received will go towards next year’s festival (2021).
We’ve launched a crowdfunding appeal to raise £1000 to help make next year`s Festival a reality and turn it into a real cracker!
With the sad postponement of this year’s event, there were costs we had to lay out that we can’t get back.
If you can help us reach our target, we’d be hugely appreciative… and have many rewards to share with you in return for your kindness.
Rewards include festival merchandise and tshirts, meetings with the headline artists, restaurant meals and more.
Read on for more information: Southdowns Folk Festival Crowdfunding Campaign
Our good friends at Langham Brewery are showing a hosting a live from the brewery and streaming it live via their Facebook page on Saturday 22nd August.
They’ll be hosting an intimate live stream of this summer’s ‘Live At Langhams event’, featuring 3 incredible musicians:
Serious Child
TOBIAH
Molly McKenna
7.30pm – 9pm.
Donations to Trees For The Downs – a South Downs National Park project.
As a result of the current Covid-19 restrictions, they are sadly unable to offer a safe live experience for their regular summer music and beer festival at the brewery.
So together with Serious Child they came up with the idea of a live stream instead.
Don’t forget to order your favourite Langham beer via mail order, or via their Home Delivery or Drive Through services to enjoy while you to enjoy the live stream:
Langham Brewery
More about the artists:
Serious Child is indie folk singer/songwriter Alan Young, who lives in the oak woods of West Sussex.
Following years living in cities around the world, Alan returned to his roots to record “Time In The Trees”, a set of reflections on the modern world from within the forest, released earlier this year. In concert, he is joined by folk singer Carla March to provide a feast of harmony and lyrical observation.
“A jamboree of versatility and melody” – Folk Radio UK, Featured Album Of The Month
“Brimming with vigour and style” ⭑⭑⭑⭑ – RnR
“The year’s first home grown album of depth, vision and commitment” ⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑ – Spiral Earth
Tobiah sings straight from the heart’ Gaby Roslin BBC London
Singer songwriter Tobiah is known for her poignant lyrics, for touching hearts with life-affirming stories of love and endurance, and for a voice described by the BBC’s Justine Greene as ‘silky, velvety, ethereal and heavenly.’
Born in Manchester, Tobiah started writing songs in earnest in her late 20s, after being given her first guitar at the age of 14. “My songs are very visual, about experiences in my life or a story that has caught my imagination. Lyrics are important – I could never write a song that didn’t move me.“ Her latest album Are We Angels has been described as “thoughtful, elegant and disarmingly moving” by Fatea and “the discovery of the year” by Tony Birch at Folking.com.
Molly is a young singer/songwriter and emerging talent from Ifold in West Sussex who has been making waves with her beautiful debut single “It’s Not Fair” released earlier this year. She brings a fresh and modern take to pop music with her ukulele and stunning voice. When we asked her to perform, Molly pointed out that this fitted perfectly with her upbringing, saying: “we kind of love trees in this family, “my Dad’s a carpenter, brother’s a tree surgeon and Mum’s an artist”.
Enjoy Around Kent Folk issue 100 for August and September 2020.
This is your guide to folk events in Kent, Surrey, Sussex and beyond… as well as online events.
We think this issue includes several special articles of particular interest to our web users.
Enjoy online via Issuu: Around Kent Folk – August and September 2020
Whereas a few short weeks ago there was cautious optimism that this year’s Festival could go ahead, recent developments and growing uncertainty have meant that with enormous sadness, this popular event will be postponed until next year with the new dates being 16th to 19th September 2021.
Festival Chairman, Roger Nash said: “All the indications from Government are that social distancing will be in place for the foreseeable future in order to continue the struggle against Covid-19 and help protect the NHS. This makes it almost impossible to use our indoor Festival venues, both in terms of keeping audiences safe and the adverse financial impact this will have. Further, we cannot even be sure that these venues will be available by September plus Arun District and West Sussex County Councils are not allowing any road closures or events on their land at this moment in time. Therefore, in these unprecedented circumstances, we feel that postponement is the most responsible course of action we can take in order protect future festivals as well as fully protect our audiences, volunteers, performers, venues, suppliers and contractors.
We are `rolling-over` our entire Festival programme into 2021 and are currently talking with headline artists, other performers, stall holders, local authorities and our festival venues about appearing and hosting events between 16 and 19 September next year. We can confirm that we have had very positive responses from these discussions and we envisage that our Festival programme featuring Steve Harley, The Strawbs and Steve Knightly amongst others, plus the popular Ukulele Festival and the inaugural Americana Festival on the Pier will very much mirror what would have taken place this year with the possibly of one or two exciting additions. As before, there`ll be loads of free events, great Festival Markets, dance displays, Big Seaside Sing, Shanty Showdowns, sessions, free workshops plus more.
Festival outreach projects, in particular `Making Your Mark` free ukulele sessions and `Musical Minds` will continue over the next 18 months either online and at the right time, with a series of mini events and
concerts culminating at the 2021 event.
If you already have either a 4-Day Festival ticket, individual evening concert ticket or tickets for the Americana Festival, we ask you to be patient. You will be contacted by either the Festival organisers, the Regis Centre and WeGotTickets to ask if you would like to roll-over your tickets for 2021 which would be very helpful, or would like a refund. Festival ticket prices will remain exactly the same. If you have paid as a Festival Market stallholder, the market operators will be in contact, and once again, payments made can be rolled over to the 2021 event or refunds made.
Please be patient but any queries should be emailed to: southdownsfolkfestivalmarket@yahoo.co.uk. Rest assured, we will deal with your preferences as quickly as possible. In the meantime, stay safe and we look forward to coming back next year even bigger and better.
With things as they are in the current uncertain climate, we’re still working hard to deliver an excellent event this September, and are remaining positive.
We will continue to follow the guidelines set-out by the government in terms of large scale events and safety.
Many thanks for your continued support.
Bognor Regis Lions Club host this fun evening on Saturday 28th March.
Why not get involved?
💥
We have warmly welcomed a financial boost of £1500 from the Bognor Regis Business Improvement District (BID)
Cultural Fund and £3500 from the nationally based, Joe Strummer Foundation.
The additional funding from the BID will be used to fund the Festival`s Dance Programme plus the Big Seaside Sing and new for 2020, the ‘Shanty Showdown‘.
BID Chairman, Jason Passingham said “Our support for the Festival is based on its proven track record in attracting people into the Town Centre and creating a great atmosphere that people can enjoy and take part in if they wish in a relaxed and safe environment. The Festival really does reach out and involve the whole Town and brings a lot of new people to Bognor Regis which all has a very positive impact for local shops, hotels, pubs and other businesses.”
Monies from the Joe Strummer Foundation will go towards getting even more people involved in music through the platform of the Festival as well as extending the life of one of its outreach projects, `Making Your Mark` which has been running since June 2018 with the aim of combating social isolation by learning and playing the ukulele.
Simon Goodale representing the Joe Strummer Foundation said, “The Foundation is all about empowering people through music and the Southdowns Folk Festival and the ongoing `Making Your Mark` project has shown how this can be successfully achieved. We want to build on this success and get even more people from a whole variety of backgrounds and ages into and enjoying music, improving their skills and confidence thereby creating more positivity and a ‘can-do’ frame of mind”.
Festival Chairman, Roger Nash added “We are really grateful to the Bognor Regis BID and the Joe Strummer Foundation for their valued financial backing. This will enable us to improve and expand the September event as well as giving us a firmer financial footing to continue our musical outreach projects plus help create an even more positive image for Bognor Regis”.
Festival tickets for our 2020 festival – both the Folk and Americana festivals – are now on sale via
We Got Tickets, via the post (download the booking form via our ticket page) and via The Regis Centre.
Perfect timing as a Christmas gift for the folk, Americana music-lover in your life, or simply to purchase as your go-to summer festival ticket of 2020.
Purchase 2020 Festival Tickets
