This year, Broadstairs will be different in some ways and exactly the same in others. It will still take place in a beautiful town with sandy beaches, a timeless Edwardian atmosphere and lots of cute shops, buzzy restaurants and vibrant cafes.
It’s a traditional folk music festival – and that remains right at the heart of Folk Week. Over the past 55 years, the festival has become a magnet for people who love authentic music and the opportunity to meet up with an extended family of every generation. Our festival-goers love discovering new bands, seeing old favourites and chancing upon things you would never expect to see at a folk festival!
In 2021, you will be able to bring the family along to the Hobby Horse Club for free entertainment at the bandstand; visit the new look Craft & Music Fair on the seafront and if you fancy the full festival experience, pitch your tent at the Folk Week campsite.
In April 2021, we can reveal that we are planning to have a brand-new concert arena, with a full programme of music every day from the evening of Friday 6th August to Friday 13th August. This will be the main venue for Folk Week and the hub of the festival. The artistic line-up is being confirmed at the moment, and we hope to have lots of exciting news for you soon.
The Folk Week Arena is close to Broadstairs train station and will have an on-site bar and some food stalls. We have worked on ensuring this outdoor venue will be able to go ahead, with or without social distancing and we will update you on this as the weeks go by.
You can buy tickets for just one day, a weekend, a full week, with or without camping.
The Festival Campsite is located at a local school – and one of the benefits of coming to this chalky corner of East Kent is that the fields are free-draining – so no Glastonbury style mud in Broadstairs!
Overlooking the beach on the clifftop Victoria Gardens, the Craft and Music Fair has a huge variety of ceramics, clothing, musical instruments, paintings, jewellery and gifts and is free entry. The Festival bar the Jack Hamilton is located here, sponsored by Shepherd Neame, run by volunteers and a great place to catch up with festival friends.
And next door is the bandstand, a totally free venue which hosts the ever-popular Hobby Horse Club with the madcap Hooden Horses and Clarence the Dragon.
We hope to welcome Morris sides to Broadstairs again in 2021 – Folk Week wouldn’t be the same without the hard-working morris dancers who bring colour and eccentricity to the streets and shows around the town.
Long-time Folk Week fans will notice that at the moment, there are some familiar elements missing. There is one factor influencing this, and that is the roll-out of the government roadmap. We hope to be able to update you on the festival at each official step and milestone is reached. Any delay or stalling of the official roadmap will affect some aspects of Folk Week, but not all.
We will keep updating you, here on the website and on social media.
Broadstairs Folk Week is a registered charity and a company limited by guarantee that depends on a combination of ticket income, public grants, commercial sponsorship and individual donations from the Friends of Folk Week and other fund-raising such as collections on the street to exist and to stay in the town and not become a green-field site festival outside of Broadstairs.
