Press Release Feb 2022

Broadstairs Folk Week is on track to return to a full-strength festival in 2022, after putting together a smaller event in 2021 in just four months.

Folk Week is a hybrid of a greenfield festival in the middle of a town – with a beautiful beach too – making a great family holiday.

The festival headliners including Lindisfarne, Show of Hands, the Spooky Men’s Chorale, Spiers & Boden, Sharon Shannon, the Longest Johns, the Magpie Arc and Tim Edey who will all appear in the Concert Marquee at the Festival Arena, next to the town’s railway station.

After a drought of dance in 2021, festival goers are looking forward to a full programme of dances and ceilidhs at the new dedicated venue in the town’s popular Sarah Thorne theatre, featuring dance workshops in English Folk dance, Appalachian clogging, Cajun dance, and lunchtime and evening ceilidhs for all the family.

There are around 400 events crammed into one week – including workshops for all abilities in music, song – African dance, drumming and guitar, flamenco guitar, fiddle, melodeon, spoons and ukulele for all the family are just some of the subjects on offer. Young people can join in with the Band in a Weekend project – bring along any instrument or just your voice and create a band.

There are singarounds, poetry shares and sea shanties on the Jetty.  Morris sides dance around town and down the High Street in the annual festival parade, which did not happen in 2021. The ever-popular official free pub gig programme takes place in pubs around the town. At the bandstand, the free Hobby Horse Club attracts hundreds of families who participate in games, singing and dancing with Clarence the Dragon and the festival mascots, the Hooden Horses.

The festival campsite is within walking distance of the town and venues, although there is a free minibus service into town too. It’s a great way of having a holiday by the beach with all the entertainment thrown in!

New in 2022 is a Folk Week Lite week’s adult ticket which includes all events apart from the evening concerts in the Festival Arena. The weeklong festival ticket, which includes all events has an Early Bird offer which finishes on 31^st March.