Barton Hill Festival was a celebratory family friendly festival of live performance, art, wellbeing and food which will took place on Sunday 29 October 2017 in Barton Hill, Bristol.

Travelling Light Theatre Company are delivered the Festival in partnership with Barton Hill Settlement and Up Our Street and the programme was packed with a range of performances, culturally diverse activities and food from around the world.

This was a festival curated for and by the people of Barton Hill. The programme was shaped through community consultation and a large number of community organisations were involved in running activities at the event.

Barton Hill Festival was supported by The Big Lottery Fund’s Awards For All scheme, Bristol City Council’s Community Festival and Events Fund and Tesco Bags for Help.

This supported the exciting programme of events including: African Drumming with DMAC UK, Poetry/spoken word workshops, Family Theatre with DragonBird Theatre, Junk modelling with InBristol Studios, outdoor activities with Learning Partnership West, free South Asian lunches by Dhek Bhal, wellbeing sessions by the Wellspring Healthy Living Centre, music from BCFM, capoeira workshops, spice mixing from the Somali kitchen, face painting and much more.

Our Youth Theatre groups presented work at the Festival. The 11 -13 and 14-19 youth theatre groups devised Hillstories, working with local community members who attended the Barton Hill Settlement lunch and bingo clubs to create a cross-generational piece of theatre that looked at the lives of local residents in Barton Hill. We worked with Wyldwood Arts on this project, who are experts at intergenerational community work.

Hillstories was created thanks to the generous support of the Youth Social Action Fund. Our Louder Than Words group created a sensory exploration room for young people with additional needs, which played films created by group members with local film maker Camilla Adams. And our 7-10 group created a spectacular festival finale piece.

Created and delivered by young people, community members and professional artists, Barton Hill Festival ran from 11am to 5pm on Sunday 29 October 2017, followed by a lantern parade through the streets of Barton Hill, finishing in the Urban Park.