Local community group Hale Barns Events has fought off national competition to be awarded lottery funding for its community festival next month.
The Hale Barns Carnival, which launched last year with an appearance from New York disco group Odyssey, returns to St Ambrose Playing Fields on Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th July with a packed line-up of performers and attractions.
And it has now been awarded £9,454 by The Big Lottery Fund, which will cover over a third of the event costs and help the organisers deliver a bigger event this year.
Organiser Max Eden said: “These type of events do cost a lot to stage. We started planning this year’s event in August last year and we are so grateful to the National Lottery Players and the Big Lottery Fund for choosing the Carnival.
“With their help and the continued support from our sponsors like Benchmark Security in the village, we are able to bring an incredible event both for the free entry day event and the ticketed concerts in the evenings.”
The free entry day events are from 12pm to 5pm on both days with the big evening concerts kicking off from 6pm.
This year’s evening concerts feature David Bowie, George Michael and The Beatles tribute acts on Saturday, with ABBA, The Bee Gees and Diana Ross tributes following on the Sunday. Both evening concerts conclude with spectacular firework displays.
Eden added: “With the Carnival, we are always looking at ways to evolve it and make it better, we’ve got some amazing features at this year’s event including a birds of prey display, the World Cup final on the big screen and James Bond’s iconic DB5 (as seen in Spectre) on display.”
This year’s event features over 280 performers, a foodie village, funfair and a whole host of kids’ activities.
