We started life in a market hall simply celebrating Markets and the Seasons. It was a bright colourful platform with flags, local food, humorous signs and live music, and all centred around an enormous allotment. The purpose? To share positive stories, embrace the power of community, and celebrate our inherent relationship with the Planet.

 

15 years on, having moved onto the High Street in 2012 despite all the new challenges this presents, those core principles of passion, creativity and positivity are the same now as when the first seeds were sown.

 

It’s never been a finger pointing exercise. It’s about green-fingered awareness-raising folded around heaps of fun, and all aimed at showing how a vibrant community comes from people investing in each other through Positive Action. 

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We take back the High Street, showcasing the town with a 'Carnival of Plenty Street Dance' showing how creative thinking can change the look, feel and relationship with a space from being a market hall, car park or orchard into an Allotment, a Contemporary Dance Arena, a Skate Park, a Cinema or a Wild Zone. 

The High Street is where people have always met so it’s the perfect opportunity to plonk a sofa on the street, sit down and have a chat.  

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Blackberry Fair is a stage on which to create new traditions for a modern age, events that bring people together either as players or audience, rubbing shoulders together and creating community confidence, a sense of identity and civic pride that crosses all boundaries. That’s what lies at the heart of this story.

 

We believe in the value of celebrating the Arts, giving professional artists a new stage, local Artists the chance to perform alongside national and international performers, and the public an opportunity to see, touch, be involved in or simply experience amazing work on their own high street.

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We don’t sit still. Blackberry Fair is changing all the time. It’s not just an event, it’s a philosophy for life that belongs to us all.  The Fair welcomes new ideas that keep it fun, energised, focused and relevant.

 

Nurturing self-belief is important for us all. We’ve changed the world we live in ourselves, so Blackberry Fair's small bootprint simply says 'Hey, if we respect each other, have some fun, use our common sense, we can all still climb trees, swim in lakes and eat food past its sell by date'. 

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People say they can’t find blackberries at Blackberry Fair, but actually they’re everywhere – you, me, us, we are all the Blackberries!