Bristol Harbour Festival | |
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Genre | Music Festival, Community Festival |
Dates | 18–20 July 2014 17–19 July 2015 15–17 July 2016 21–23 July 2017 [1] 19–21 July 2024 [2] |
Location(s) | Bristol, England – Bristol Harbour, Queen Square, Millennium Square, Castle Park, Harbourside |
Years active | 1971–present |
Website | Bristol Harbour Festival Website |
The Bristol Harbour Festival is a free festival [2] held annually in the English city of Bristol, which celebrates the city's maritime heritage and the importance of Bristol's docks and harbour. Most of the activities, including live music, street performances, fireworks and a variety of other live entertainments, are held on or near the waterfront of Bristol Harbour. Venues include Queen Square, Lloyds Amphitheatre, Millennium Square and Castle Park, with seagoing vessels moored nearby. The liveliest part of the festival is quayside, but the main attractions are entertainment designed to engage all the communities of Bristol, as well as entertain the thousands of visitors to the city.
The city has hosted the festival since 1971, when it was started as part of an ultimately successful attempt to save the docks from being filled in. [3] [4] In 2012, the festival attracted over 300,000 visitors, its highest ever attendance, with the Irene and the Matthew being two of the tall ships to attend that year. In 2013 fireworks returned to the festival after a two-year hiatus. [5] [6] [7] [8]
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 Swindon Dance, features a main stage and participation area where visitors can learn to dance. Cirque Bijou's famous circus stage takes over Castle Park, next to an interactive Children's Area, which featured a pirate ship in 2013. SS Great Britain hosts an outdoor stage with BBC Radio Bristol, while Happy City creates an interactive area within Lloyds Amphitheatre to demonstrate all the elements which make up a happy life. In 2013 the Thekla Harbour Stage was created in Muddock to showcase up and coming bands alongside a new festival bandstand. [9] [10] [11]
In previous years entertainment has included Beth Rowley, the Hot 8 Brass Band, DJ Derek, The Blessing, The Bristol Ambling Band, Phantom Limb, Kid Carpet, Natty, Barry Adamson and VV Brown. [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19]
Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but it is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have developed over thousands of years specifically for the purpose of keeping an audience's attention.
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, the most populous city in the region. Built around the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. The county is in the West of England combined authority area, which includes the Greater Bristol area and nearby places such as Bath.
Bristol Temple Meads is the oldest and largest railway station in Bristol, England. It is located 118 miles 31 chains away from London Paddington. It is an important transport hub for public transport in the city; there are bus services to many parts of the city and surrounding districts, with a ferry to the city centre. Bristol's other major station, Bristol Parkway, is a more recent station on the northern outskirts of the conurbation. It is the busiest station in South West England.
The River Avon is a river in the southwest of England. To distinguish it from a number of other rivers of the same name, it is often called the Bristol Avon. The name 'Avon' is loaned from an ancestor of the Welsh word afon, meaning 'river'.
Cardiff Bay is an area and freshwater lake in Cardiff, Wales. The site of a former tidal bay and estuary, it is the river mouth of the River Taff and Ely. The body of water was converted into a 500-acre (2.0 km2) lake as part of a UK Government redevelopment project, involving the damming of the rivers by the Cardiff Bay Barrage in 1999. The barrage impounds the rivers from the Severn Estuary, providing flood defence and the creation of a permanent non-tidal high water lake with limited access to the sea, serving as a core feature of the redevelopment of the area in the 1990s.
Cockatoo Island Wareamah is a UNESCO World Heritage Site at the confluence of the Parramatta River and Lane Cove River in Sydney Harbour, New South Wales, Australia.
The Ashton Court Festival was an outdoor music festival held annually in mid-July on the grounds of Ashton Court, just outside Bristol, England. The festival was a weekend event which featured a variety of local bands and national headliners. Mainly aimed at local residents, the festival did not have overnight camping facilities and was financed by donations and benefit gigs.
Bristol Harbour is the harbour in the city of Bristol, England. The harbour covers an area of 70 acres. It is the former natural tidal river Avon through the city but was made into its current form in 1809 when the tide was prevented from going out permanently. A tidal by-pass was dug for 2 miles through the fields of Bedminster for the river, known as the "River Avon New Cut", "New Cut", or simply "The Cut". It is often called the Floating Harbour as the water level remains constant and it is not affected by the state of the tide on the river in the Avon Gorge, The New Cut or the natural river southeast of Temple Meads to its source.
Bristol City Centre is the commercial, cultural and business centre of Bristol, England. It is the area north of the New Cut of the River Avon, bounded by Clifton Wood and Clifton to the north-west, Kingsdown and Cotham to the north, and St Pauls, Lawrence Hill and St Phillip's Marsh to the east. The Bristol Royal Infirmary, Bristol Royal Hospital for Children, the BBC, the main campus of the University of Bristol, the Crown and Magistrate's Courts, Temple Meads railway station, Bristol bus station, the Park Street, Broadmead and Cabot Circus shopping areas together with numerous music venues, theatres and restaurants are located in this area. The area consists of the council wards of Central, Hotwells & Harbourside, and part of Lawrence Hill.
Happy Valley, Pennsylvania is a region of Centre County that contains the borough of State College, and the townships of College, Harris, Patton, and Ferguson. Collectively, these municipalities comprise the Centre Region Council of Governments. The region is bounded by Nittany Valley to the northeast, Penns Valley to the east, and Bald Eagle Valley to the north and west. Centre County is the State College, Pennsylvania, metropolitan statistical area, which is part of the State College–DuBois, PA Combined Statistical Area.
The SEC Centre is Scotland's largest exhibition centre, located in Glasgow, Scotland. It is one of the three main venues within the Scottish Event Campus.
Canon's Marsh is an inner city area of Bristol, England. Canon's Marsh occupies approximately 1 square kilometre of low-lying land on the north side of the Floating Harbour, immediately to the west of the River Frome spur of the harbour. Canon's Marsh includes Bordeaux Quay, Canon's Wharf, Hannover Quay, and Millennium Square, and is part of the area that has been branded "Harbourside".
Noah's Ark Zoo Farm is a 100-acre (40 ha) zoo developed on a working farm in Wraxall, North Somerset, 6 miles (9.7 km) west of Bristol, England. It is home to the largest elephant facility in northern Europe.
The Godiva Festival is a three-day music festival held each year in the War Memorial Park, Coventry, England, named after the city's famous former inhabitant Lady Godiva. It first appeared as a day-long event in 1997 and became a three-day event the following year in 1998. It is the largest family music festival in the UK, and is made up of two fields; a Main Field and a Family field, which each offer a different experience.
Roald Dahl Plass is a public space in Cardiff Bay, Cardiff, Wales. It is named after Cardiff-born author Roald Dahl, and is located on the coast along the south of the city centre. The square is home to the Senedd building housing the Senedd, the Welsh parliament, and the Wales Millennium Centre, a performing arts centre. The bowl-like shape of the space has made it a popular amphitheatre for hosting open-air concerts.
The Underfall Yard is a historic boatyard on Spike Island serving Bristol Harbour in England.
Millennium Square is a city square in the Canon's Marsh area of Bristol, England. It was built in the late 1990s as part of the harbourside regeneration and We The Curious development, and has become a popular public area and event space. The square is a 55 by 40 metres pedestrianised space, joined at its northeast corner to the smaller Anchor Square, forming part of the Brunel Mile, a sequence of traffic-free and low-traffic spaces forming a route through central Bristol.
The Portway is a major road in the City of Bristol. It is part of the A4 and connects Bristol City Centre to the Avonmouth Docks and the M5 motorway via the Avon Gorge.
Mayflower is a steam tug built in Bristol in 1861 and now preserved by Bristol Museums Galleries & Archives. She is based in Bristol Harbour at M Shed. She is the oldest Bristol-built ship afloat, and is believed to be the oldest surviving tug in the world.
Bristol Packet Boat Trips is a limited company offering public and charter excursions in Bristol Harbour and on the River Avon. The company has four boats: the river launch Tower Belle, narrowboat Redshank, glass-topped Bagheera and locally built Flower of Bristol. The company also has an interest in Bristol Hydrogen Boats which has commissioned and built a hydrogen powered ferry boat.