Welcome to The Girvan Arts Festival 2025!
Girvan is full of artists: musicians, poets, authors, playwrights, sculptors and visual artists. Girvan is also full of beauty: the natural scenery is sublime!
Dear all,
I’m delighted to be able to welcome you to the 4th Girvan Arts Festival.
In four short years the Festival has established itself as an important and joyous fixture in the town calendar. The events and activities are ever more impressive, with famous names, new voices and exciting opportunities all packed into an incredible weekend.
Thanks to the imagination and drive of a dedicated team of local volunteers, the Festival’s contribution to the social life of Girvan has grown. Throughout the year a host of exciting projects will link communities, delight audiences and inspire real cultural growth.
My hometown has always produced writers, musicians, artists, designers, makers and enthusiastic, knowledgeable audiences.
This festival is a celebration. And a declaration: Girvan is alive and kicking.
Have fun!
Douglas Maxwell, Playwright
Hi!
Welcome to the 4th Girvan Arts Festival, 2025. We’re looking forward to an exciting programme of speakers, and events. This year, we extended the festival’s reach in the community, and held two sold-out Comedy Nights, Upstairs at The Harbour Bar.
We have been awarded a number of grants to help us continue – one from Nadara to help run the festival, for which we are extremely grateful, and also grants from Girvan community council and the Girvan Town Team for our latest project, running a competition to design a flag for Girvan.
We are introducing a ‘Scratch Night’ an evening at the theatre where scripts become a reality, produced by Fraser Kirkland. There will also be an Arts Debate at Girvan Academy.
The Art exhibition will take place this year at The McKechnie Institute, running for a whole month! There will be children’s events at the Library, and the weekend will end with another great musical event – two opera singers treating us to songs from the movies!
We hope you will come along and listen to speakers on a broad range of topics: the making of curling stones by Kay’s in Mauchline, to the renowned crime-writer Denise Mina. There is a lot of choice, so get on the website, and start booking your tickets.
This will be a great opportunity for us all to keep the cultural and Girvan flags flying!
Festival Director and Founder
Girvan Arts Festival Aims and Objectives
Our Aim is to promote accessible arts by holding a weekend of creative events each year. We believe that art encompasses everything creative from painting and drawing to woodwork, cooking and photography. It’s about access for the local community to the arts in their broadest sense through presentations and workshops.
Through the festival, we hope to encourage participation in the arts in Girvan and its surrounding areas, increase visitor numbers to the town, and promote creativity and personal well being for Girvan’s citizens.