The team behind Ely Folk Festival has launched a new challenge for 2018 alongside its annual competition.
As well as holding the annual band competition, this year the festival has launched the Youth Folk Challenge.
The challenge is intended to provide opportunities for young folk music acts within Cambridgeshire to perform on the stage of one of the UK’s top festivals.
Successful entrants will perform alongside Scottish band Skipinnish, Steve Knightley – one half of Show of Hands, folk-rock pioneers Lindisfarne, Cambridge favourites Ezio, Northumberland piper Kathryn Tickell & The Darkening, blues hero Johnny Dickinson and many more including last year’s band competition winner Alden Patterson and Dashwood .
The festival also hosts three ceilidhs over the weekend as well as the local bands showcase, children’s activities, morris dancing, workshops, a real ale bar and sessions.
This year the festival will also include a performance of poet Gareth Calway’s ‘A Very English Resistance; The Story of Hereward The Wake’ which celebrates Hereward’s under-dogged routing of the Normans, from the Siege of Ely and the Sack of Peterborough Abbey to his later real-life Robin Hood resistance in the greenwoods of Northamptonshire.
Fionnuala Lennon, festival organiser, said: “We’ve booked a tremendous line-up this year that reflects the diversity of folk and roots music in the UK.
“It’s a great place to catch great music, and there’s something fun for all the family.
“One way of banishing those winter blues is to book your festival tickets now – the festival is still one of the most keenly priced weekend music events around.”
The festival box office is open and early bird reduced price weekend tickets are available until June 1 starting at £75 per adult.
Tickets for each day can also be purchased and start at £26 for a Friday evening ticket.
Reduced price tickets are available for concessions and young people. Children under 12 get free entry.
For details on how to enter both competitions and to book tickets visit www.elyfolkfestival.co.uk
The closing date for entries is April 28.
• Ely Folk Festival is a not-for-profit annual music festival run by a committee of volunteers
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