Festival reduced in size for this year, reflecting shortfall in funding required

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The annual Arts Fresco Festival will be returning to Market Harborough this September in a much-reduced form – Arts Fresco Lite. The event will take place from 11.00 am to 2.30pm on Saturday 7 September 2024 and will feature three major acts.

Due to financial limitations, Arts Fresco Lite is a reduced version of the annual day-long Arts Fresco Festival. The acts at this year’s Arts Fresco Lite are:

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• MarkMark productions – an Arts Fresco favourite and one of Britain's leading festival and street theatre companies

• Bedlam Oz with a Market Harborough favourite ‘Big Mob’ - a pair of giant Slinkies bring their bewitching world to the streets of town

• The Felicity Footloose Show - watch Felicity as she juggles, dances and performs daredevil acrobatics, all set to a fabulous 80s soundtrack

Felicity Footloose’s show will be performed in the square. Slinkies and MarkMark will perform in the area around the old Grammar School, Adam and Eve Street, St Mary’s Place and the square for their walk-about acts. Arts Fresco Lite will run in conjunction with the Fringe event where singer songwriters will perform in local shops and cafes.

Arts Fresco regularly showcases some of the best street theatre performers in the UK and Europe. The annual event first ran in 2002 and is one of the largest, free street theatre festivals in the UK.

Arts Fresco is organised by a dedicated team of local business professionals who all volunteer their time and are passionate about the arts and Market Harborough. The organisers want to keep Arts Fresco as a public event that is free and accessible for all to attend.

 

Festival goers may not be aware that the event is funded entirely by donations and grants. In addition to the professional acts, there are many other costs associated with safely staging the event including road closure; signage; licences; first aid; insurance and street cleaning.

This year, due to an unsuccessful national funding bid, and despite the generosity of the existing sponsors and organisers’ best efforts to raise additional funds, Arts Fresco has failed to raise sufficient funds to deliver the Festival that the organisers would like.

The Festival organisers have made the difficult decision to run a much-reduced festival ‘Arts Fresco Lite’ as a fundraiser to support future Arts Fresco events.

For a traditional Arts Fresco festival to go ahead in 2025, the total cost will be around £30,000. The Arts Fresco organisers have identified around £10,000 from established supporters and sponsors, but need help from the public to raise the additional funds required.

To make a donation, please follow the link on the website at www.artsfresco.co.uk

Neil Kitson, Chair of the organising committee of Arts Fresco commented: “Like many festivals, we are limited in the financial support available and after being unsuccessful with a bid for new funding, we have taken the decision to return this year with a slimmed-down version of the festival, highlighting a few of our most popular performers. We hope that people will come out and support us again as we try to sustain the legacy of this amazing community event.”

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For further information about Arts Fresco, visit www.artsfresco.co.uk or follow our social media on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. 

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For further media information, please contact:
 

Simon Gribbon
On behalf of Arts Fresco
T: 07990 583371
simon@sandstarcomms.com