A two-day Luton town centre festival is set to be even bigger and better thanks to nearly £15,000 of Arts Council Funding.
Celebrate Luton Street Fest, which is coming to Luton town centre this August for the very first time, has been funded by Luton Business Improvement District (BID) and is two days packed with drummers, parades, comedy, music, street circus, interactive street games, dance, a projection, rap, workshop and much more.
Marie Kirbyshaw, BID Director and Chief Executive of Luton Culture, said: “We were determined to bring a festival to Luton town centre this summer, so the BID put aside funding to make this happen and this has been further boosted by a grant from Arts Council England. Celebrate Luton Street Festival promises to be an unmissable spectacle for the whole family and we are expecting the town centre to be brimming with people enjoying high quality and memorable arts performances”.
Luton BID has commissioned Revoluton Arts to create Celebrate Luton Street Fest.
Jenny Williams, Project Director at Revoluton Arts, said: “We are delighted to have been commissioned by Luton BID and supported by Arts Council England to produce Celebrate Luton Street Fest. We are looking forward to bringing two days of the best of UK and international outdoor arts performance to the heart of Luton.”
Thanks to the additional funding the opening event on the Friday will now be a comic, musical promenade performance by French outdoor arts company Vernisseurs, who describe themselves as ‘a company which combines visual arts and theatre, using the street as a playground’.
The funding has also meant the addition of an ‘Applause Programme’, made up of four artists:
• Eric McClennan Open Air Drawing Room – this begins with the arrival and un-packing of folding stools, easels, flasks, other knick-knacks and sandwiches. But this is no ordinary show – for the audience will literally be drawn into the group
• A parody of the Jaws movies by Bootworks Theatre, called ‘We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat’. Embark on underwater exploration, cage diving and shark hunting.
• Enter Edem: Comedy Cavemen – this posse of Palaeolithic cavemen characters cause mischief while spreading an environmental message. This team of toothy trouble makers will have audiences laughing and running to the recycling bin as they tell the tale (through grunts and groans) of their time spent frozen in ice to be awoken into a world of plastic problems to be solved!
• Joe Garbett Dance – an interactive outdoor table tennis performance Doubles, combining innovative dance project combining ping-pong and dance.
The entertainment will run from 5.30pm to 8.30pm on Friday 30th August and then from 11am to 9pm on Saturday 31st August.
The closing event on Saturday will be a dynamic spark and pyro display from Worldbeaters, a world class illuminated music and street theatre/ drumming act.
Other highlights are a children’s street theatre and interactive street games.
For more information on Luton BID and its various events and initiatives throughout the town centre, please visit the BID website www.lutontowncentre.org or contact a member of the BID team by calling 01582 510657 or emailing info@lutonbid.org.