Bristol Harbour Festival
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This article needs additional citations for verification. (January 2009) |
| Bristol Harbour Festival | |
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 Pero's Bridge full of people passing over the harbour at one end of the Bristol Harbour Festival in 2010. |
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| Dates | 26th – 28th July 2013 |
| Location(s) | Bristol, England – Bristol Harbour, Queen Square, Millennium Square, Castle Park, Harbourside |
| Years active | 1971–present |
| Genre | Music Festival, Community Festival, Tall Ship Festival |
| Website | |
| Bristol Harbour Festival Website | |
The Harbourside in Bristol, England, has hosted the Bristol Harbour Festival since 1971,[citation needed] with over 250,000 visitors[1] attending live music, street performances and a variety of live entertainment. The festival includes music stages, a dance stage, street theatre performances, and water displays. A highlight of the festival until 2010 was the Saturday Night Fireworks presentation.[2] Most of the activities are held near the waterfront, so a significant part of the festival is connected with the seagoing vessels moored nearby.
The liveliest part of the festival is quayside, but the main attractions are, of course, seaside — with all the water displays, with tall ships from many countries and hundreds of sailing boats and old-time boats of all kinds. The festival celebrates the city's maritime heritage and the importance of Bristol's docks and harbour, and takes place over a weekend at the end of July or beginning of August.
This event inspired similar events across the Channel, such as Les jeudis du Port and Fête Internationale de la mer et des marins in Brest, Brittany and across Western Europe.
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Entertainment[edit]
The Bristol Harbour Festival has a variety of entertainment from dance acts, interactive theatre, international circus acts and a mix of musicians. The Dance Village, programmed by Ashley Russell will be showcasing; The Netherlands Dance Company will be dancing a piece by Hans van Manen. The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre will be bringing a single dancer doing a solo piece by the company’s new artistic director Robert Battle. New York City Ballet will be performing a piece from Swan Lake as well as an excerpt from Stars and Stripes. The Bristol Old Vic is involved with the festival for the first time, with two specially commissioned performances ‘Run’ and ‘Fallen’ from The Bristol Old Vic’s Young Company. Cirque Bijou and the circus stage will now be based in Castle Park, the newest expansion to the festival. Mario Queen Of the Circus will also be performing, along with the Invisible Circus The Queen Square music stage is programmed by Colston Hall with headliners such asSt Pauls and St Georges Reggae Orchestra and Ska Cubano.
In 2009, Beth Rowley, The Hot 8 Brass Band, Sheelanagig, The Blessing and Phantom Limb appeared on the Queen Square Stage, programmed by Colston Hall and supported by Willmott Dixon. Let's Tea Party, Kid Carpet, Nuala and the Alchemy Quartet, The She Creatures, Natty, Barry Adamson and Alex Wilson's Uplifting Roots on the Amphitheatre Stage. Babel, Bobby Andersen and Slow made up some of the highlighted acts on the Cascade Steps stage. Locally sourced youth acts played on the Remix Stage, in the Mud Dock area of the harbour. The 2009 festival had a new 'Dance Village' which featured international and locally celebrated dance performers including two principal dancers from the Martha Graham Dance Company in New York. The Millennium Square Circus Stage programmed by Cirque Bijou featured Duo Ssens, a world class static trapeze act, local comperes Stickleback Plasticus and the Black Eagles, acrobats all the way from Tanzania. After parties took place at local venues including the Thekla and the Louisiana.
In 2012 the Bristol Harbour Festival attracted the biggest crowd to date with 300,000 people visiting the festival.[3] The Irene and The Matthew were two of the tall ships to attend the Harbour Festival this year.[4]
See also[edit]
- Bristol Harbour
- International Festival of the Sea, held at Bristol in 1996
References[edit]
- ^ "St. John's Ambulance Support for the Bristol Harbour Festival 2009".
- ^ "Bristol Harbour Festival fireworks are cancelled". BBC News. 16 December 2010. Retrieved 16 December 2010.
- ^ Enjoyed the Harbour Festival? Give us your views for the next festival, WestburyPeople, 24 July 2012
- ^ Final preparations being made for Bristol Harbour Festival, Bristol Evening Post, 20July 2012
External links[edit]
- Harbour Festival official website
- About the Harbour Festival at Visit Bristol
- BBC Bristol's page about 2008 Harbourside Festival
- Fête Internationale de la mer et des marins (English version)
