Festival Memories 2024
The 3rd Girvan Arts Festival has come and gone, and what a blast it was, in the fantastic surroundings of the Girvan Community Garden.
Thanks to the lottery community fund grant, we were able to continue to attract superb speakers and artists, a fine mix of the incredible local talent and creative guests from the length and breadth of Scotland.
Click on any of the pictures or links for further information, or scroll down for links to every single event in the 2024 festival line-up.
Photographs: Susanne Arbuckle, Helen DW Humphries, Gill Lynch, Alan Jeans, Brian Neve, Julia McDonald, Mike Lynch, Derek Hall.
Video: Susanne Arbuckle, Helen DW Humphries, Gill Lynch, Alan Jeans
Our exciting collaboration with Girvan Academy on a number of arts projects included a youth art exhibition at the school, a QR Code Art Trail and an exhibition of pupils’ photography at the Wee School Art Space.
In the new school term, a playwrighting workshop with Douglas Maxwell will kickstart a competition to write a short play, and the winning entries will be staged at a drama evening later in the year.
You can read the article from our intrepid pupil reporter Aicha B and press photographer Alisha D on what they thought of the festival here.
The line up of guests at this year’s festival included a gardener, a playwright, an author, an actress and an inspirational podcaster; a filmmaker & social documenter, a traditional signwriter, a poet and a taste of salt.
At the library, for the kids, there was a wee granny with a magic bag, some stories and a few games. and an Ailsa Craig craft event for the older children to get creative.
…and our new musical interludes, provided by talented local musicians Scott Wilson, Jennifer & John Stewart and Davie Hunter, were a hit, not forgetting the wonderful pupils from Invergarven School, who performed some of the songs they had been learning all year.
Our spoken word performers kept alive the old tradition of storytelling in poetry and prose. For highlights, click here.
…and a good crowd enjoyed the cracking harmonies of Scottish-Danish husband and wife folk duo, the Quiggs, on Saturday evening.
Click here for a wee taste of their sounds.
The festival had kicked off with the wonderful cinema classic, ‘Brassed Off’, and the Newmilns & Galston Brass Band closed the festival on Sunday with a fantastic mix of tunes from the film, and favourites like the ‘Rocky’ theme tune and ‘Sweet Caroline’.
You’ll definitely laugh, you’ll probably cry, and you might even want to take up the flugelhorn
Tracey Petherick, Common Sense Media
Coming soon
As ever, the popular Art Exhibition highlighted the creative talent we have in Girvan and Ayrshire. This year, there was also a display of Girvan Academy pupil’s photography.
And this year, we were delighted to be given a generous grant from The National Lottery Community Fund to run the festival and to keep the cost of attending events as low as possible. Tricia Watts, one of our volunteers and a stalwart of many charitable organisations in Girvan and Ayrshire, presented the cheque to our founder and chairwoman, Helen Humphries.
We’d also like to thank all our wonderful volunteers who make the whole weekend run smoothly, and always with a smile. It is a tribute the sense of community in Girvan that we always seem to get enough people to man the exhibition and the box office, and set up the festival and the art exhibition on the Friday.
