Festival 2021: Subject to Change
This year’s Festival is subject to change. How could it not be?
Our first change is that we’ve moved the opening day of the Festival from Friday to Monday 17 May. We’ve chosen this because it is the first day the Government’s Road Map allows for indoor and outdoor performance and the opening of museums and galleries. We all know that there is potential for the road to take a turn between now and then and we may have to change our plans too.
If our plans change, we’ll let you know as soon as we can. Our fleet-of-foot approach means we will publish a series of newspapers with up-to-date news rather than one brochure. This newspaper has as much detail as possible about all of our performances and our next edition will be out just before the Festival. And we’ll make good use of e-newsletters, social media and our website as up-to-date sources of information.
No matter what happens, we’ve planned for some parts of the Festival to take place come what may. We can mail you one of our specially commissioned Experience Packs to unpack at home in your own time, you may like to walk through the City and discover our outdoor installations, or there are performances to take part in online.
We’re proud of and excited by the Festival we’ve brought together. You’ll find a rich programme of music and a whole range of events with a focus on performance installations and experiences.
One of the bigger changes this year is that we are offering all performances on a Pay What You Want basis including a free option. Our aim is to remove barriers to taking part and we hope the Festival is open and welcoming for everyone. We are a Charity, so if you are able to pay for your ticket or make a donation, then your contribution is welcome.
As always it’s a pleasure to be working with partners from across Norfolk. The City of Literature programme, which we present in partnership with the National Centre for Writing, will be back with a focus on actions and projects. We’re also delighted to showcase Future and Form, a rich programme celebrating 50 years of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. The visual arts are well represented with great exhibitions across Norfolk.
We’re delighted we’ll be back at Festival Gardens (that’s our cheeky re-name of Chapelfield Gardens). The Garden Party will return and the Festival will conclude with the Garden Sessions, a new partnership with Wild Paths. But this year we will not have a Spiegeltent because we do not feel comfortable taking the financial risk of running this venue at limited capacity.
Restrictions on gathering also means there will be no big opening spectacle. In recent years, audiences have told us how much they have enjoyed gathering on the streets for our launch events and we’re planning to be back bigger and better in 2022, when we celebrate our 250th anniversary.
We’ve planned the Festival despite ever-changing limitations around access to venues, gathering of people and travel. We have had to cancel or postpone a number of projects because artists have not been able to rehearse, venues have not been open or we have not been able to work in schools. All going well, we’ll find ways to present some of these events later in the year.
We’re working hard to make all events safe for artists and audiences. Appropriate social distancing will be in place, we’ll pay special attention to cleaning and sanitising, and our team of volunteers will be specially trained to look after our audiences.
There are less events than previous years and this is a result of us having to cut our cloth to fit our resources. However, our ambition is no less and our pleasure in sharing great experiences with the people of Norfolk and Norwich remains at our heart.
All we need for a memorable Festival is you. We look forward to you joining us.
