Written evidence submitted by the Tenterden Folk Day Trust Tenterden Folk Festival DCMS enquiry into the Future of UK Music Festivals INTRODUCTION The Trust Tenterden Folk Day Trust is an independent registered charity formed in May 1994 to preserve and advance public education and appreciation of traditional and contemporary folk music, song, dance and other related traditions, crafts and folk arts as a part of the living heritage. The Trust is supported by Tenterden Town Council, Ashford Borough Council and Kent County Council and an increasing number of local and regional businesses and other community organisations. Musical and heritage policy The emphasis of our musical policy remains very much on traditional English folk music, song and dance. This is complemented by traditional crafts, folklore and traditions. By its very nature traditional folk music develops and changes, so we do not exclude contemporary material in a traditional style or performers who bring in experience of other musical styles or musical influences. We draw many of our guests from South East England, particularly Kent, Surrey and Sussex, and also include many guests well known on the national folk scene. We also feature “overseas” song and dance particularly where this has a connection with the local area through the material or performers. The Trust is affiliated to the English Folk Dance and Song Society and a member of The Ashford Federation of the Arts, The Association of Festival Organisers, Produced in Kent and registered with The Fundraising Regulator. Tenterden Folk Festival The annual Tenterden Folk Festival takes place over the weekend of the first Saturday of October. The festival starts on Thursday with a special fundraising concert sponsored by Around Kent Folk magazine. On Friday, Saturday and Sunday there are over 50 events including an English barn dance, storytelling for adults and children, concerts, craft fair, artisan, music and other stalls, exhibitions, shows, dance displays, folk clubs, Morris dancers, Appalachian dancers, Slovakian Dancers, sing-a-rounds and music sessions, procession, street theatre, West Gallery music, workshops, Showcases and other folk events. The festival website is www.tenterdenfolkfestival.org.uk Morris sides; the festival offers Morris sides and dance display teams a chance to get together and see each other perform and to meet socially in a friendly and casual atmosphere. There are up to 50 sides present, with around half coming from Kent, Surrey and Sussex and the others from all over the rest of England. Most styles of Morris are represented including Border and Cotswold Morris, with men's and women's sides, also Longsword, Rapper, Garland, Clog and Molly dancers. Other dance display styles can include Scottish, Appalachian, Bangra, Bulgarian and Slovakian dancers. As well as the displays and workshops, the dancers all take part in a grand procession, together with Hooden horses, animal guisers and street entertainers. Sing-a-rounds and sessions; some of the most popular events at the festival are always the free sing-a-rounds and song and music sessions. Local singers and musicians crowd the bars and back rooms of various public houses to take their turn to perform or to join in the music sessions. They are joined by some of the festival guests who appreciate a chance to join in the grass roots of the music where most of them actually started. Festival guests; in addition to many local performers from Kent, Surrey and Sussex, guests booked for the festival have included many of the country's leading folk musicians and barn dance bands. Overseas Guests; the festival is pleased to welcome traditional folk groups from overseas, particularly where there is a local connection or special interest. We also include local groups that play "world music". Our overseas guests have includes groups from Belgium, Romania, Slovakia, Holland and Germany. We have also been pleased to welcome folk musicians from the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. Tenterden Folk Club Tenterden Folk Club is a free sing-a-round style club that meets in the bar of The William Caxton in Tenterden High Street on the second Tuesday of every month. Singers and musicians from all over Kent and Sussex meet with local performers from Ashford and Tenterden to sing and play a wide variety of traditional and contemporary acoustic music. Performers may include unaccompanied singers of traditional folk songs; a mouth-organ player who mixes popular 1920's tunes with Morris dance tunes; a singer songwriter who specialises in songs about Kent; a family who play a variety of traditional Irish music; a duo singing music hall songs; individual musicians playing guitar, melodeon, concertina, double bass, banjo, whistles, flute, violin, etc. It just depends who turns up on the night! One of the ideas of the club is to give as many people as possible a chance to join in, if they want to. The club occasionally organises a special event for which a guest may be booked. Around Kent Folk magazine The Trust publishes Around Kent Folk magazine, a bi-monthly free guide to the folk events in Kent, Surrey, Sussex and beyond. AKF also includes news, editorials, reviews and other information. The magazine is funded by advertising revenue. AKF is sent by post to subscribers and distributed through local venues, libraries, etc. and is also available on line at www.aroundkentfolk.org.uk, Educational projects The Trust also organises various educational projects. The best known of these has been "Bards, Ballads and Beyond" which was an annual project supported by Kent County Council and Ashford Borough Council and was open to all schools, colleges, youth clubs, adult education centres, etc. within the Borough at a subsidised rate. This enabled us to arrange for professional folk musicians to visit a school or similar venue to run workshops on traditional folk music, song and dance for a day(s), half day or evening. Each workshop, with at least two visiting performers catered for up to 40 participants. This project ran from 1997 to 2013 and benefited many 100’s of students. In 2019 the Trust received a grant from Kent Community Foundation to run workshops with children with special needs in local schools. These workshops were run at The Wyvern School in Ashford where our workshop leaders worked with a group of special needs students many of whom are in wheelchairs and have communication difficulties. These workshops continued into early 2020 when they were postponed until it is safe to start. Occasional concerts, barn dances and ceilidhs The Trust also promotes occasional concerts, barn dances and ceilidhs during the year, mostly, but not always, in the Tenterden and Ashford area. We have been involved in concerts of Kentish folk songs, concerts with visiting artists who would not otherwise perform in the area and various special one off projects. The barn dances and ceilidhs have usually been promoted with local bands to bring them to the attention of a wider audience and introduce more people to barn dances and ceilidhs with mainly English music. We also co- ordinated three days of folk song, music and dance in the Produced in Kent Village at the Kent County Show in 2006. The Trust as a folk animateur or local development agency The Trust is also happy to work with other community organisations, including local authorities, clubs, charities, companies, individuals and other bodies on joint ventures and to be involved in other compatible local arts projects. We can offer advice and assistance in organising folk events, such as barn dances, ceilidhs, concerts, workshops or other folk music, story-telling, folk-lore, craft and other related projects. We do not act as a booking agency for performers but we can often put organisers and artists in touch with each other and offer advice on where to find the type of folk performer or act an organisation is looking for. The Trust has worked with The Kent County Show, Produced in Kent, Ashford Borough Council, Create Festival, Revelation Ashford and many other local organisations. Funding The Trust is a registered charity and the Trustees and organising committee are all volunteers. The Trustees and organising committee include folk enthusiasts, Borough and Town Councillors, local business people and other people interested in supporting local events. We are constantly in need of financial and practical help and support. We welcome grants and sponsorship from both local and national businesses, or other organisations, to assist in our charitable objective. The Trust regularly receives grants and other support from Tenterden Town Council, Ashford Borough Council and Kent County Council. SUBMISSION TO THE DCMS COMMITTEE What is the economic and cultural contribution of the UK’s festival industry? We can only comment on the cultural contributions that our own activities make locally. Tenterden Folk Festival is the only annual music festival in Tenterden and one of the few in Ashford and one of the longest established and most popular. The Borough of Ashford does not have a dedicated theatre or full time music and arts venue and relies on local churches, church halls, school, villages halls and the function rooms of public houses to host music and arts events. There are however at least two main dedicated sports centres in the Borough but these are not suitable for use for music and arts events due to the lack of suitable facilities. The nearest theatres and similar venues are Canterbury, Tunbridge Wells, Maidstone or Folkestone each of which is around 20 miles away from Tenterden and only easily accessible by car. The four day Tenterden Folk Festival therefore offers local people a rare chance to experience a cultural activity locally and at a reasonable cost.