A free three-day festival will be staged in Scarborough next month as part of efforts to bring a more diverse range of visitors to the North Yorkshire coast during the main tourism season.
Scarborough Streets will involve outdoor performances, events, workshops, murals and more on the Bank Holiday weekend, May 4 to 6.
Organised by ourselves, the festival aims to inspire, celebrate and showcase local creativity, while also featuring national and international artists.
Throughout the weekend there will be a variety of street performances, from circus acts and puppetry to dance and theatre with the town’s streets jam-packed with entertainment.
Scarborough Streets is one of several high-profile events lined up for the town this year, as part of the Scarborough Fair Festival, including Scarborough Fringe in June and Scarborough Art which runs from the middle of June into early August.
Assistant director for culture and leisure, Jo Ireland, said: “We are delighted to be able to bring this free event to Scarborough.
“Following on from Scarborough Lights, this latest event is part of our plan to place the town at the heart of the cultural and artistic calendar.
“It is about bringing the arts to the people and making them accessible for all. We have a wealth of talent in North Yorkshire and combining this with some of the best national and international acts will make for an unmissable experience.”
The over-arching Scarborough Fair initiative, which takes its name from the event that was last held in the 18th century, is being revived as a year-round programme of arts, heritage, music and sports events and is expected to run until 2026.
The cultural project is aiming to help boost North Yorkshire’s tourism industry, which is worth £1.5 billion a year in the spend from domestic visitors. It accounts for 11 per cent of the county’s overall economy, and 41,200 workers are employed in the sector.
Head of tourism, Gemma Rio, added: “Scarborough Fair is aimed at showcasing what is one of our most popular destinations to an even wider audience.
“The series of events that are being staged over the summer months provide new and exciting opportunities to help build on Scarborough’s huge appeal.
“It is hoped that more people will come to visit the town over the coming months to enjoy what is on offer, and also help to support the local economy.”
Stand-out performers at Scarborough Streets include Phileas Fogg, who will wow visitors with their hilarious roving performance fusing modern technology and the classic Jules Verne novel, Around the World in Eighty Days, and Beetlebug, a talented musician with more than 100,000 followers on social media.
On Bank Holiday Monday, there will be a walkabout parade led by Animated Objects. They will be joined by many of the acts and those who have attended workshops over the weekend.
Elsewhere, two audio trails have been created called What the Sea Saw and the Wilfred Owen Walk.
The first reflects on the town’s fishing heritage from the 1950s up to the present day, while the latter follows in the footsteps of the famous English war poet who spent time in the town and includes excerpts from his work.
Outdoor murals will also appear across the town, including a stylised map of Scarborough opposite the railway station and a piece entitled Celebrating Diversity at the Falsgrave Community Resource Centre, Seamer Road.
A third mural, known as the Limonade Mural Project, will feature at Big Maya’s Jerk Chicken on Hoxton Road and a piece by Turn Up The Colour, called We See With Our Hearts Not Our Eyes, will be at Yorkshire Coast Sight Support on Dean Road.
One of the organisations taking part in the festival is inkahoots!, a community interest company based in the town.
They will be performing pieces created as part of The Brave Project, an initiative funded in part by the Children and Young People’s Dance Network North.
Director of inkahoots!, Clare Maxwell, said: “Scarborough has always been a hive of cultural activity without being acknowledged as such.
“Thanks to Scarborough Streets, we can now shout loudly and proudly about the creativity, artistry, talent and diversity that thrives in the town.
“We are really looking forward to the festival and our young performers can’t wait to show just what they have to offer.”
The Brave Project is designed to encourage boys and young men to explore their physical, expressive and creative capabilities through dance, sport, martial arts and physical theatre.
Underpinning the whole project are messages promoting positive mental health and emotional wellbeing.
Clare said: “We now have a great core group of boys aged between 16 and 24 and hope that our involvement in Scarborough Streets and then Scarborough Fringe will encourage even more to join.”
Scarborough Fringe, which runs between June 21 and 30, is the first such event to be held in the town and will feature theatre, music, comedy, spoken word, children’s shows and a variety of other events and performances.
Scarborough Art, meanwhile, will be held between June 15 and August 4 and is an exciting combination of exhibitions and workshops taking place at various venues across Scarborough and beyond.
See full details about Scarborough Streets and all the other Scarborough Fair events this summer.