Isle of Wight Community Renaissance Festival

Well, can you believe it? It’s that time again! We’re now in the early stages of planning the 2010 IOW Community Renaissance Festival.

The 2009 event was a great success and exceeded our expectations on all counts. We’ve had so many requests to repeat it again for next year, we thought it would be rude not to!

We are still very keen to keep the essence of the festival as it was last year. Over 240 people gave their time freely to the project, from planning, administration, workshops and design for the six months leading up to the festival, to the day of the festival and the break-down afterwards– all artists, performers, musicians and crew worked brilliantly together all voluntarily, Smallbrook even gave us the venue free of charge to realise this day of community celebration, which raised £3,000 for charity.

For the 2009 event we were given £1000 funding by Ryde Town Council – this funding was spent on:

Licenses £190.00

Advert for Licensing Act (County Press) £48.90

Banners x 2 £34.80

Insurance £105.00

First Aid £106.79

Bus for the day £450.00

Promotion of event £65.00

Everything else was donated and provided by individuals and businesses of the Isle of Wight community – for this and so many other reasons, the IOWCRF really is a fantastic example of community spirit.

We have already been offered some funding by a number of local businesses which will cover the licenses and insurance for the event – we are of course always looking for more sponsors, so please let us know if you are aware of any individuals/businesses looking to help fund a really worthwhile project.

We are hoping that the 2010 event will be an even bigger celebration than last year – but of course we need lots of people on board to make it happen!

If you would like to be involved in next year's celebration - Please take a look to the left of this page, where you are invited to an Open Evening to discuss ideas and plan for the 2010 event. All kinds of skills are needed, and all input is welcome. Please email Bex Maitland bex@theparkcentre.org.uk for further info.