Beer and bars

The bars and beers are (obviously) an important part of the festival, and this year the quality of the bars and the range available is going to be even better than ever…..we have a confirmed list of the beers that are going to be available (listed below), PLUS we will have a unrivalled range of ciders too!

Timothy Taylors Landlord, Best bitter
Enville Breweries Simpkiss Bitter, Enville Ale, Ginger Beer, Enville LPA
Ma Pardoes (Old swan brewery) Entire bitter, Dark Swan, Original
Hobsons Brewery Best bitter, Town Crier, Mild Ale, Pale Ale
3 Tunns Brewery XXX, Solstice, Best Bitter
Woods Quaff, Shropshire Lad, Shropshire Lass
Bridgnorth Brewing Company Apley Ale, Northgate Gold, Old Mo
Holdens Special, Golden Glow

Keeping it Local!

Here at Shrewsbury Folk Festival we love the town that hosts us every year and are always extremely grateful for the support we get from our local community.
We are determined to be as local as we can at the festival and where possible we use Shropshire companies - from our web masters to our loo provider!

We want to support as many local businesses as possible to pay back into the county and community that supports us - and it helps reduce our carbon footprint.
For the first time this year we have Shropshire's BoxFresh Organics on board as sponsors of our village stage. BoxFresh - whose staff are all keen folkies too - will be providing a onsite shop where people can buy organic fruit, veg, eggs, bacon, sausages, bread, cheese, butter, milk, tea, coffee and sugar and support a local business. They are also kindly giving our artists organic fruit to munch on.

BoxFresh are also planning festival boxes which campers can order in advance and pick up onsite through
www.boxfreshorganics.co.uk

Other local businesses involved in the festival include - The Cider House from Wootton near Bridgnorth which run the bars; Space Mobiles (toilets) from Much Wenlock; SP Holding from Telford (a sponsor and drainage services); BPD Print Solutions from Sutton Maddock (printing); Modern Fire Extinguisher Services from Atcham (hazard a guess what they do!); Pink Skips from Telford; Purple Hotel in Shrewsbury which puts up artists; Paul and Sabine at Virtual Shropshire (Much Wenlock) who do our website, filming and photography and Face Interactive from Ironbridge which designs our newsletters, adverts and flyers.

Our local paper the Shropshire Star has also sponsored the wristbands everyone will be wearing this year. The paper is always hugely supportive with its positive coverage throughout the year, as is BBC Radio Shropshire, which will be driving its Big Red Bus to the showground and offering free workshops on board!

We also run a free shuttle bus into Shrewsbury town centre on Saturday and Sunday as well have having music sessions and dancers perform in the town centre and local pubs.

The festival t-shirts have arrived!

For this years' festival we have a range of styles and colours across a range of sizes including standard t-shirts, ladies fitted shirts, ladies strappy vests and childrens.

We’ll post details of all the shirts over the coming weeks (once we get through all the boxes they’ve arrived in!)

Here’s the first shirt.....

Shrewsbury Folk Festival Varsity Tee

Classic grey marl shirt, available in mens sizes and as a ladies fitted t-shirts.

A 2 colour print on both front and back that has been ‘aged’ to give the shirts a vintage look.

(click on images for an enlarged view)

Workshop Details

The timetable for workshops is finalised, and available for download here

Amongst the workshop highlights are harmonies with Nancy Kerr & James Fagan, dancing workshops from belly dancing to rapper to clog, there will be team of Sound Engineering lecturers from Birmingham Uni recording free demos, the Musicians' Union will be hosting sessions with advice for new artists.

There's a huge amount going on, and certainly something for everyone!

Workshops

As if the fantastic line up we can offer isn't enough there will be 50 - yes 50! - workshops to choose from at this year's festival.

There'll be sessions in everything from music, dance, singing, songwriting and we've even got some great workshops planned for our younger visitors in the Refolkus youth programme for people aged 12 to 25.

We're really excited about our workshops this year as it's the most we've ever put on. One advantage of the great venue that we have is that everything is on one site so you don't have to miss out on all the other fun at the festival.

And there are also going to be seven ceilidhs going on in our dance marquee over the Bank Holiday weekend including one by the Oysterband. They rarely perform as a ceilidh band these days so that will be a real treat!

If you still haven't got your tickets there are some full weekend tickets still available at http://www.shrewsburyfolkfestival.co.uk/ or through 01746 768813.

We've sold out of day tickets for Sunday, but you can still get Friday evening, Saturday and Monday tickets.

See you there!

2008 Festival Layout and Map

The festival is fast approaching (only about 5 weeks to go as I write this), and everything is coming together very nicely.

The programming for all the venues, workshops etc. is all complete, and we now have the final festival layout complete

There are a couple of changes from last year, but nothing too drastic – here’s the map……pick your camping spot!

Improvers' session Tunebook

The long awaited Improvers' Session tunebook is now available for free download here.

Those of you who witnessed or heard about the sessions last year will be itching to brush up your tunes for 2008.

Whether you've been tin whistling since Tuesday or playing for a few years, you will find a great set of tunes to learn and play.

This year we have both Beginners and Improvers sessions so musicians can hop on board at any level, our in-house session crew will keep the tunes going! This year's book sees donations of favourite tunes by some famous names from the traditional music circuit - see if you can spot (and learn) them.

Hope to see you there - Izzy