05May

07May

Bristol Folk Festival is a family friendly festival, held over the May Bank Holiday weekend at Bristol’s Colston Hall. The venue is transformed into a bustling centre of concerts, ceilidhs, workshops, sessions and impromptu jams, with ample places to eat, relax and shop in the three floor, free market place and it doesn’t matter if the sun isn’t shining because its all indoors, with posh loos! Thrown into the mix are a wide range of artists from folk headliners to local acts, alongside poetry, storytelling, morris dancers and mummers.

In 2011 Bristol Folk Festival was resurrected after a 32 year break and was back with a bang over the May Day holiday weekend as glitter and confetti cannon showered the Colston Hall stage at the end of supergroup Bellowhead’s flourishing finale.

Voted a resounding success, the bustling three-day festival fielded some of the biggest names in folk as its headliners, drawing around 2,000 people – from all over the South West to as far afield as Scotland – to the new-look venue.

There were celebrations all round when the music extravaganza opened on Friday making a double date with Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding day and giving lots of Bank Holiday makers the chance to attend. Festival patron Seth Lakeman, a former Mercury nominee and the man credited with making folk “sexy”, headlined Friday night with the phenomenally popular West Country duo Show of Hands topping the bill on Saturday and 11-piece folk juggernaut Bellowhead on the Sunday – all prompting standing ovations.

This year they welcome the Bristol O2 Academy into the fold as they host the sell out Newton Faulkner.

05 May - 07 May |