On the 15th and 16th of June, Beacon Festival opened its gates for a fun packed weekend of live music, comedy, poetry, zorbing, eating and drinking, fun for the younger ones and wellbeing activities.
Festival highlights included live performances from the mighty ‘El Bronson’ and festival headliners ‘Rusty Shackle’ and ‘The Killerz’. Children were also kept entertained in the Kidszone by local singer Nick Cope with songs such as ‘The baby’s done a poo’ and ‘Grow, Grow, Grow’.
The festival was founded as a not for profit event to support local charities and good causes. This year the festival is supporting First Steps Family Hub, Thames Valley Air Ambulance, The Treehouse School and Footsteps Foundation.
The festival had its largest ever attendance with over 3,500 people visiting over the weekend. This meant the festival is able to donate a record £2,500 to each beneficiary, along with match funding the Watlington Primary School PTA breakfast sales. The success of the festival also meant additional donations could be made to the Watlington Scouts and St Leonard’s Church.
Ruth Dunkin, Head of Community & Events at Thames Valley Air Ambulance said ‘we are so grateful for the support from Beacon Festival and it was a real pleasure to be involved for the first time this year. It was fabulous to be able to speak to the festival goers about our work, and it is also extra special to meet people who have been personally touched by our service’
Maggie Davies, Foundation Manager at the Footsteps Foundation said ‘With £2,500, we will provide 50 hours of specialist therapy for disabled children in need. Over the course of 50 hours, children will expect to improve their strength and motor skills significantly!’
The festival organisers would like to take this opportunity to thank all the local people who supported the festival, our sponsors and the volunteers without whose help, the festival could not go ahead.
We received an amazing amount of fantastic feedback from people attending this year’s event and some amazing photographs. We also had some feedback regarding the timings of some of our bands which will take on board for next year. As well this, we will be investing in further toilets for the event as we know this too was often referred to when people were discussing the event. The team are already planning 2019 and we hope to continue improving the festival.
Beacon Festival is back on the 21st and 22nd June 2019 and tickets are now on sale on the website and when we released the tickets, 10% of our capacity sold within 24 hours of releasing them, and they have continued to sell well since June. We are also pleased to confirm that we will continue with under 16’s getting in to the event free in 2019.
We believe in 2018 we may well have reached the capacity for keeping the festival vibe without getting too big, so we are expecting that this year we might sell out before the event as we limit the capacity, therefore we do encourage you to buy early to avoid disappointment and during September you can buy at 2018 prices.
The festival is also taking applications for next year’s beneficiaries, so if you know of any local good causes that could benefit from working with us during 2019 and receiving a donation, please submit your application by visiting www.Beaconfestival.net
