more arts.

WOKINGHAM FESTIVAL 2021

At Wokingham Festival we love live music. On both our Trademark and Wokingham Music Club stages you'll find a brilliantly eclectic mix of local, national and international artists. Last year we also introduced local business talks, where we learned more about the business that make Wokingham the fantastic place it is.

Schedules and timings for the individual days will be available nearer the festival, but in the meantime you can learn all about the fantastic acts we have in store for your enjoyment at this years festival here.

Wokingham Festival 2021 will be over August Bank Holiday weekend and this year the Festival extends into Bank Holiday Monday, too.

• Saturday 28th August from 11am
• Sunday 29th August from 11am
• Bank Holiday Monday 30th August from 11am

Music from noon every day, on two stages. The Festival attracts a great line up of acclaimed musicians as well as up and coming acts. From folk to soul, pop to rock we have it covered! Plus street food, beer festival bar, cocktail bar, craft stalls (until 6pm), children's entertainment (until 5pm).

Tickets:

• Full weekend: £19 (early bird price, saves £4)
• Day ticket: £8 (early bird price, saves £5) for Saturday or Sunday or Monday.

Buy your tickets online from www.wokinghamfestival.co.uk/shop.

For more information see www.wokinghamfestival.co.uk.

CORONAVIRUS UPDATE

Most live, local arts events have been cancelled.

As a small, but very active arts charity, ‘more arts.’ has seen a lot of activities curtailed. This has prevented us involving our Wokingham community in a variety of arts activities at various outdoor community events.

We had planned 15 Hands-on-Arts events this summer ranging across all of Wokingham Borough, involving the local community trying activities from mosaic making, through spinning , painting and basically anything to get creative. Sadly of course, these events are being cancelled as we progress. But we do hope that some will survive this year and of course we will be there in whatever shape or form to entertain.

We will continue to look for projects that utilise all forms of art to support the less advantaged in our community as well as putting a smile on faces.

With Wokingham Town Council, we organise the annual Wokingham Living Advent Calendar. And this work will continue in a planning phase until we know what we can do over the advent calendar period in December.

One of the things we are now putting effort into is working with local artists to create a series of posts to give insight into how they are dealing with restrictions and use their work to bring inspiration to others and we are looking to develop a virtual gallery to highlight this and any other aspect of our local arts. From 2-D through sculpture, mosaics, music, poetry the written word and so on.

For a peek at the first pieces in the 'more arts.' Lock Down Gallery see the Creative Arts page.

At a time when nearly all of us are obliged to stay home, it is doubly sad that we cannot take part in events to lift our spirits. But there are some exceptions:

• Wokingham's libraries have set up several 'virtual' events for the May.
• And for the musicians among us, YouTooMusic is running virtual group sessions online, enabling players to join online sessions together.

NEW 'Local Arts Loan' PROMOTIONAL VIDEO

'more arts.' has released a 12-minute video to show our Local Arts Loan programme

Our 'Local Arts Loan' programme selects high quality A-Level student artwork from local schools and provides it to local businesses and other organisations to enhance their office space.

The businesses pay a small amount each week for each piece, which we share with the schools, enabling them to invest in much needed art material and equipment.

Businesses can opt to pay a small amount extra, which we add to our Legacy Fund which we use to fund arts activities to help vulnerable young people.

We also loan pieces of art free of charge to local care homes, encouraging residents to discuss what the art work means to them and perhaps enabling them to reminisce about their younger lives.

Take a few moments to view our new Promotional Video.

If you would like to learn how your organisation can join the programme, and view some of the artwork in our online catalogue, go to the Local Arts Loan section of our website.