Festival site gets thumbs up from 8,000 visitors

THE organisers of the 51st Towersey Festival can relax at last, in the knowledge that the move to the Thame Show Ground has paid off, and despite some soggy nights for campers and squelchy days for the punters, the crowds flocked to the festival over the August Bank Holiday, to enjoy performances by some of the biggest names in acoustic and roots music.

Joan Armatrading held the audience in awe on Sunday, August 30, with her rich, sensetive lyrics and mesmerizing musicianship

As well as a stream of talent on the Bar stage, organised and run by Thame’s First Thursday Music Club (follow LINK for bags of pictures and videos of artists), the festival featured sell-out headline appearances from Bellowhead, making their last official UK music festival appearance, and Grammy and Brit Awards nominated, singer-songwriter Joan Armatrading (Photo by Phil Sofer), as part of her final solo world tour.

Attracting around 8,000 revellers, the festival included stand-out shows from Oxford’s Stornoway, Show Of Hands, Sally Barker and trio Simpson, Cutting and Kerr.

The move to Thame Showground, close to the previous site in the village of Towersey itself, gave the organisers an opportunity to improve visitor access, upgrade on-stage production and introduce several new elements, such as a dedicated Creative Quarter.

Towersey Festival Director Joe Heap said: “We’ve been really blown away by the positive feedback we’ve had from our regular festival-goers. They really enjoyed the mix of familiar Towersey attractions and activities, such as lantern-making, with the new elements. We saw loads of fantastic performances across the four days with Grace Petrie and Rob Heron And The Tea Pad Orchestra among the many highlights. The new Creative Quarter also proved extremely popular with visitors and was a great addition to the site.

“Our 50th festival last year was incredible, and that sense of celebration, of Towersey Festival being something very special, has continued.”

Concluding, Joe added: “We’d like to thank everyone who helped us make Towersey Festival 2015 such a roaring success, from the countless performers to many visitors, but especially the teams of volunteers who worked so hard to make the festival happen.”

The 52nd Towersey Festival will run from Friday 26 to Monday 29 August 2016 at Thame Showground, Thame, Oxfordshire. A limited number of ultra-early bird tickets will be on sale online for just £99 for the full festival from 4 Sept 2015. For more details, see: www.towerseyfestival.com/tickets