Melbourne Festival 2008: August 29th to September 14th

The Melbourne Festival 2008 consists of an Art & Architecture Trail and a Festival of Performing Arts.  

The Art & Architecture Trail, the core of the Festival, takes place over the final weekend, the 13th and 14th of September. The Festival of Performing Arts are over a fortnight from the August 29th to the 14th of September.

The Melbourne Festival Award winner for 2008 will be exhibited in the Thomas Cook Gardens on the High Street.  The Melbourne Festival Awards were started in 2006 and the award winners have now found permanent homes in Melbourne.   For 2006, Andy Oldfield's Derbyshire limestone benches can be seen at any time under the chancel arch in the Parish Church; Hazel Atkinson's "Shoe Chandelier" is hanging in Melbourne's Public Library and Liz Emery's felt tryptych of Melbourne Pool is in the hall of Melbourne's junior school.   For 2007, Laura Donaldson's roofscape of Melbourne will be hung in the Parish Council chamber when it has been refurbished, Andy Oldfield's memorial bench is to be installed in Melbourne Cemetery in the Spring and Liz Emery's 4-panel screen, (a Melbourne Map), is installed in Melbourne's infant school.               

For Festival 2007 we had more than 30 private houses, public halls and churches, hosting visiting artists.  The full list of available properties is not yet known, but amongst them will be Melbourne Hall, the Dower House, Castle House, the Thatched Cottages on Castle Square and many others, none of which are normally open to the public. In these houses and halls, artists and craftsmen and women will be exhibiting alongside good amateurs and local art and craft classes in the Leisure Centre.   All the work is original, for sale and the artist and craftsman or woman will stand alongside it and lots of them will demonstrate their skills. The will be no imports, no repro, no middlemen, something for every taste and no tat. As in previous years, food will be everywhere and buskers in odd places all weekend.  In addition, we are planning an Easy Access Trail where people with restricted mobility can visit.