Wetherby Arts Festival – Highlights of 2020
The Festival was cancelled but the Festival lives on
2020 is a year in the festival’s history that will not be quickly forgotten. The year of the coronavirus, Covid-19, when all plans had to be set aside. But that made us think again. How can we communicate better with our audience, how can we despite the obvious difficulties, still succeed in putting on a show. It was a different story but the important thing is that the Festival still made it’s contribution to life in Wetherby.
This year of furlough was an opportunity to develop skills in social media calling in some much needed help in this area. Now we regularly communicate on Facebook and Twitter. We send mails to an increasing audience by Mailchimp and we even have a YouTube channel. Do check them out. Special thanks go to Ellen Dutton and Katy Hewison for bringing both artistic skills and a considerably younger viewpoint to the Festival.
The Dance Creation day held last year was a success and Katy Hewison and her friends in Improplay will be developing this further. This will be the first Festival event of 2021. It has attracted a great group of children who now want to display their skills largely learned on Zoom. Wetherby’s schools have strongly encouraged this initiative which is supported with funding from Leeds Inspired and local business.
Poster Project
On the theme of Wetherby Loves the Arts. We had loads of entries. Local businesses contributed too. Covid days were dark but the colours of the entries certainly brightened our day. It was great to be able to continue the ideas of the festival. We hope you saw and enjoyed them about town and on social media.
The Dance Project
Over 100 children took part at several green spaces round Wetherby on the Dance Creation day. Many went on to take part in further dance development, part done on Zoom as has been required and then as the rules eased a little dance classes have taken place in schools. More is planned in 2021 culminating in a public presentation.
This project has been funded by Leeds Inspired
The Quiz
Under the leadership of our new director, Len Horridge, a number of members have regularly met on Zoom to test their knowledge in our on-line quiz. This has not only been great fun for those attending but also a great opportunity to get together at this time of constrained activities. Bring your own bottle if you wish.
Should we continue this initiative after the social rules are relaxed again, should we hold a quiz as a festival event?
