An ambitious new Festival for Marlborough is planned for next year, aiming to replace the renown International Jazz festival that entertained locals and attracted many visitors to the area for year after year between 1986 and 2016.
The intention is to make it much bigger than the Jazz Festival, or Marlborough Rising that ran for a couple of years after The Jazz Festival ended.
Described as a ‘3-day community music & arts festival’ it is scheduled for July 2023. As with Jazz Festival and Marlborough Rising it will comprise music on multiple stages across the town, and rather than just Jazz, it will embrace many different forms of music and – in the words of the organisers – ‘the Festival is all about showcasing the very best that Marlborough, Wiltshire and the South West have to offer.’ This will include Arts, the ‘spoken word’, and Food and Drink.
Organisers Sandra Bhatia and Luke Jackson are local to the area and Sandra was involved in setting up and organising the HoneyFest in 2011 at The Barge Inn in Honeystreet, during the period that the Barge Inn lasted as a ‘Community Pub’ for approximately two years after The Barge Inn Community Project secured nearly half a million pounds in Lottery funding.
As with the Jazz Festival, the new Marlborough Festival organisers are aiming to get roads closed in the town, but as yet which roads other than the High Street isn’t clear, and for how long – all three days or just for the highlight days – similarly not clear.
Many Marlborough business have already pledged their support to the Festival, and these include Waitrose, Rick Stein, The Parade Cinema, The Lamb, the Whitehorse Book Shop, The Food Gallery, Hampton estate agents, LK Matthews hairdressers, The Wellington and Pino’s.
But there is concern amongst other businesses who are very fearful that a closure of the High Street, even for just one day over the weekend will cost them in much-needed trade. Several years ago, in one of the final Jazz Festival years a survey of retailers asking about the effect on their trade during the Jazz Festival indicated that trade was down by between 20 and 25% for many, and one claiming that half their trade disappeared. A lot of this was regarded as being due to lack of parking space for shoppers, as there are rarely many spaces on the High Street on a normal Saturday.
The Jazz Festival was eventually suspended due to Wiltshire Council’s refusal to allow the road to be closed, and with many High Street locations featuring acts, safety also became an issue.
The organisers have launched a crowdfunding page to raise £10,000 so that they can plan this event properly. The Area Board granted £2,000 at the January meeting as a ‘Community Area Grant’ to go towards the preparation of a ‘a detailed event plan’. Their application was for £5,000, but ‘matched funding’ precluded the possible award of this amount and in the agenda for that part of the meeting the budget for the Festival was shown as £288,560.00.
As a precursor to the Marlborough Festival 2023, a ‘Launch Event’ is planned for this coming July – 22nd – in the Town Hall which has been provisionally booked.
However, the earlier reports that the Town Council was supporting the event was possibly a bit early. Marlborough.news has asked the Town Council who confirmed that there is a provisional booking for this July’s ‘Launch Event’ and were aware of the Area Board grant for a contribution towards creating a plan.
Emergency landing for light aircraft in field above Alton Barnes
