We love a good music festival and this little boutique gem is an award-winner!
The sixth annual Purbeck Folk Festival, on Dorset’s beautiful Jurassic coast, is the place to be this bank holiday weekend. From 21-24 August the award-winning music festival features headline acts including Eddi Reader, The South, Turin Brakes and Lloyd Cole alongside Nizlopi, Idlewild Acoustic, Sally Barker and British folk legend Chris Wood.
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Festival goers can look forward to an eclectic mix of folk, world and pop music on a 600-acre working sheep farm in the heart of the beautiful Isle of Purbeck. Purbeck Folk Festival has music on four stages in the farm’s covered barns and a marquee venue that hosts the Purbeck Rising talent show final and open mic sessions.
Named the Countryside Music Festival of the Year in the prestigious Fatea Music Awards, as well as a line-up of well-known artists you can expect a dynamic bill of emerging and undiscovered talent including Emily Barker’s new band Vena Portae, folk legend Ashley Hutchings’ son Blair Dunlop, the Cajun powerhouse Sarah Savoy, multi award-winner Martha Tilston and Senegalese griot Amadou Diagne.
This family-friendly festival has a chilled-out vibe and offers loads of entertainment for all ages, including workshops, a poetry slam, spontaneous happenings, a cinema programme, the famous ‘beard offs’ contest, a beer festival (including the Festival’s very own beer, Buzz Lightbeer made with Purbeck honey), art interventions and a fancy dress parade.
Like all the best festivals, Purbeck Folk Festival likes to keep it green. All campers will be given recycling bags to collect their recyclable rubbish over the weekend; the composting toilets on site provide great fertiliser for the farm, and flush toilets use harvested rainwater. The organisers employ local tradespeople and try and reuse as much stored material as possible when constructing the new festival site each year, reusing lycra, bamboo, wood, paint, carpet and fabrics from previous years.
Snap up your tickets before 20th August: Weekend tickets (Fri-Sun) include free camping are on sale at just £100 (£50 12-17 years, £20 4-11 years, under 4s free). Day camping is available on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday at £10 a night on arrival. A limited number of Festival day tickets are also available.
For ticket booking and more information, visit www.purbeckfolk.co.uk
Full line-up
Friday
Eddi Reader, Nizlopi, Martha Tilston Band, Furrow Collective, ODi, Dan Whitehouse, Moscow Drug Club, Flats & Sharps, Macaferri Club, Winter Mountain, Murphy’s Lore, Drew Allen, Big Tent & the Gypsy Lantern, Kadia, Beth Johnstone, Tim Somerfield, East Creek Union, Djambo, The Jack Ratts, Threadbare Ravens, Tred, Aimee McKenzie
Saturday
The South, Idlewild Acoustic, Sally Barker, Sarah Savoy, Phil King Band, Gigspanner, Martha Tilston Band, Roving Crows, John Langan Band, Gren Bartley Band, 4Square, ODi, Lizzie Nunnery, Louise Jordan, Threepenny Bit, Sarah Savoy (workshop), Sound of the Sirens, Macaferri Club, Big Tent & the Gypsy Lantern, Kadia, Mother Ukers, Catherine Burke Band, Feral Beryl, Kaia Vieira, Aimee McKenzie
Sunday
Turin Brakes, Lloyd Cole, Blair Dunlop, Emily Barker & the Red Clay Halo, Caravan of Thieves, Coco & the Butterfields, Chris Wood, Amadou Diagne Band, Gren Bartley Band, Vena Portae, Alex Roberts, Tinderbox, Polly Paulusma, Fearne, Aimee MacKenzie, Ian Brown, Will McNicol, Flats & Sharps, Gill Sandell, Emily Barker (solo), Tori Read, Kate Lomas, The Jimmy Hillbillies, Ceilidh Band, Quinns Quinney, Krista Green, Inu