Come and join in the wonderful Incredible Edible Maindee Festival on Saturday, July 7 to enjoy a day of great live music, poetry and performance. There’s still chance for you to join in our fabulous carnival parade.

You could plant up a wheelbarrow, decorate a pushchair, or just bring yourselves and join in the wild and wonderful array of giant fruit and vegetables, bees, butterflies and of course Maindee Man and Woman as they make their way from Rodney Parade to the festival site at Maindee Primary School. The parade leaves at midday and festival fun kicks off with the arrival of the parade at 1pm.

From then on expect a lively afternoon of performances on three stages. Apple Tree Theory get the music going on the main stage with their mix of bluegrass, pop and acoustic folk, followed by performances from Maindee School Choir and the Bollywood belles.

Then look out for Polish and Galician folk musicians Michal Poreba and Gerardo Albela, and performances from Tracey Curtis and Tarantism. Solo singer and songwriter Tracey was a former member of punk band Shelley’s Children and her song writing is in the “protest” genre, covering issues that affect us all.

Final act Tarantism aim to have everyone on their feet with their mix of Celticskapunkdubdance music!

The more acoustic and chilled Garden Stage features a packed afternoon of homegrown talent including Stacey Marie, Sidney Fate, Ellis Devlin, Bryony Sier, and Aled Hughes. The stage also hosts the first performance of Tales of the Ocean, a mini opera created by young people from Newport working with composer Helen Woods and writer Mike Church. Tales of the Ocean is a fishy story of friendship, bravery and pollution.

If poetry and the spoken word is your thing find the Spoken Word tent that’s showcasing an amazing line up of talent this year, including The Pendragons Writers Guild featuring Kym Frederick, Xania Boreanaz, and Lee Kershaw, Newport Writers, Justin Teddy Cliffe, and Alan Roderick and The Cwtsh Poets, Kym Frederick, plus Steven George Jones and Rhian Hutchings performing Nonsensus, plus many more talented wordsmiths introduced by MC and storyteller Dick Berry.

Performance atrist and poet, Dino Rovaretti, will also be making an appearance and will performing in the field.

Across the site there’ll be Cuban dancing from Ces Y Cocoa, Senegambian drumming and Newport’s Vikings.

Please stay on the right side of Tip and Trash, our resident green clowns who will be making sure you dispose of your rubbish properly. We want to recycle as much as possible and would like people to bring their own drinks container to the beer tent and community café.

Find out about the newly-former Maindee Makerspace and Men’s Shed groups and enjoy a mix of art and craft activities in the art tent, plus seed planting with Incredible Edible Maindee and Grow Wild. There’ll be the usual world food, face painting, fair rides for small children and various stalls, plus the café and beer tent. We always want volunteers on the day and people to wear giants in the parade.

So please contact us if you want to join our festival team, join in the parade, or would like to be a last-minute trader.

www.maindee.org/festival

Email:  festival@maindee.org

07837 033090