Thousands Expected at The Brentford Festival
Linda Massey previews the Blondin Park event on September 7th
Whilst many are counting down the days to the end of the holiday season and the children going back to school, the Brentford Festival Committee are busy putting the final touches to the organisation of the 9th Brentford Festival.
It will again be held in BLONDIN PARK which is enveloped by houses in Brentford as well as Northfields, Ealing and will take place on Sunday 7th September noon until 6pm being the first Sunday in September.
Brentford based vintage bus company redroutemaster will be running a free shuttle service approximately every 40 minutes throughout the day starting at Brentford Market and will cover Northfields, West Ealing and Hanwell. You can see the route and see the timetable by going on the www.redroutemaster.com/657
There will be a number of new attractions this year which will include ARK the petting farm to add to the ever popular pony rides. Various sporting opportunities are on hand, from the mobile boxing ring with the Hanwell Boxing Club, football and short tennis from the Brentford FC Community Sports Trust to the challenging bucking bronco.
So many musicians want to perform at the festival that this year a second acoustic stage will be erected in the central area. In line with festival policy the musicians do not receive a fee for their performances. For the first time this year there will be a music merchandising stall near the stage so we hope that visitors to the festival will in turn support the artists by purchasing their cd's on sale. Within the transport display of old vehicles, including vintage police cars, busking will take place in one of the routemaster buses. There will be other musical opportunities if you fancy trying out the ukulele or the drums and more.
No event can be without refreshment so the Friends of Boston Manor are pleased to be running the real ale bar, pimms bar and soft drinks marquee in the central area. In the same area there will be lots of food to tempt the palette including seafood paella, Portuguese piri piri, Caribbean jerk to Austrian sausage, hog roast, burgers and more. There will even be a stall giving away smoothies to show how much food we waste - it is said nothing in life is free though, you will have to pedal a cycle to generate the blender to produce the smoothie. If that doesn't appeal (pun there somewhere) new business KRUNCH will gladly sell you their freshly made smoothies.
With only weeks to go Virginia Fassnidge, the hardworking festival stalls co-coordinator is still receiving requests for stalls. We have already hit 100 bookings. There is a good variety of charity, special interest and commercial stalls. Many of the commercial stalls are new start-up businesses looking for the exposure the festival will bring so make sure you bring some money or the cheque book - is it too early to mention Christmas presents?
If you cycle why not bring along your bike and get it tweaked by Dr Bike ready for the winter season. Cycling Experience will be coming along with some 60 bikes for you to try out. If that is all too energetic for you then maybe the ever popular dog show ìs for you or a visit on one of the guided tours around the nature reserve.
A lot of hard work by unpaid volunteers from the local community goes in to the planning of the festival. We hope that residents from Brentford, Ealing and beyond will turn out in their thousands to enjoy the day.
Linda Massey
Event Manager
www.brentfordfestival.org.uk
28th August 2014
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