Royston Arts Festival

Creative Royston is a not-for-profit organisation entirely run by unpaid but elected volunteers in Royston, Hertfordshire (UK), whose aim is to celebrate and encourage local creativity all year round and give locals the opportunity to experience both professional and amateur work first-hand. Its main focus is Royston Arts Festival which covers art, craft, music, dance, drama, new writing and a whole lot more and the organisation is supported by local businesses and charities and through its own occasional fundraising efforts.

We are always looking for local collaborations and we aim to provide infrastructure for local groups wanting to put on more ambitious projects. We work closely with local schools, museum, churches, musicians, amateur dramatic plus arts & craft societies, and businesses, to stage our annual arts festival and provide opportunities to showcase and develop local talent.

Royston Arts Festival takes place annually between the final two weekends in September and typically features about fifty events, including performances, exhibitions and workshops, many of which are run independently by local clubs and societies. The 2019 festival included a concert performed by internationally acclaimed trumpeter, Alison Balsom, and her Balsom Ensemble, and also a cabaret evening featuring renowned Drag Queen, Cookie MonStar.

Each year a festival theme is chosen, which in 2019 was "Our Planet" reflecting environmental issues but also allowing for artistic interpretation in other ways. In 2020 the chosen theme was "A Question of Balance" which embraced ideas and concerns around general well-being and the balancing of life's priorities. That was an 'online' festival only owing to Covid restrictions. In 2021 we staged a mainly 'live' festival once again with a few online events and the theme of 'Renewal' reflected the times we were in and our optimistic view of the recovery period which would be necessary after the pandemic. In 2022 our festival theme is 'Circle of Life' and we hope to return to something like a full pre-pandemic 'live' festival though we may retain or modify one or two popular online events.

The festival is family-orientated and many events are free and a full programme will appear in September in Royston's 'The Listing' magazine (freely distributed locally website: The Listing Magazine, Royston) and announcements are made on the festival website and social media in the months leading up to the festival.

See the festival website Royston Arts Festival for further details where you can also sign up to receive our latest posts.