Winchester Hat Fair is, in fact, the UK’s longest running festival of street theatre, comedy and music. It’s called the Hat Fair because, essentially, it’s a busking festival – all of the acts are paid by the crowd, who (hopefully) throw money into their hats at the end of a performance. This is called ‘hatting’.
So, there are hundreds of free events (well, free if you have no conscience) alongside a handful of ticketed spectaculars, one of which French company Generik Vapeurs’ very exciting sounding new Waterlitz show, including an explosive display of pyrotechnics (ooh!), breath-taking aerial stunts (gasp!) and a 30m high giant made of shipping containers (aah!), was… cancelled due to the bad weather.
Still, plenty more going on – the town centre was taken over by dozens of acts on Friday and Saturday, while on Sunday the fun moved to Oram’s Arbour, a lovely park at the top of town, which is where Festival Chronicle (still feeling a bit tired and soggy from Avebury Rocks the night before) spent a few delightful hours. Continue reading
Festival Chronicle 