Cheltenham’s world-class sporting and cultural festivals bring hundreds of thousands of visitors to the beautiful town and its Cotswold countryside each year.
March sees ‘the olympics of horseracing’, the UK’s premier National Hunt meeting, known to racegoers simply as The Festival (13-16 March 2012). The climax of the week is the Gold Cup, in recent years the setting for titanic battles between stablemates Kauto Star and Denman. The roar of the crowd at Prestbury Park has a strong Irish accent and is complemented by the party atmosphere at the racecourse’s many venues and in Cheltenham itself.
Cheltenham’s other unique sporting festival is Gloucestershire CCC’s C&G Cheltenham Cricket Festival (20 - 31 July 2011) the longest and longest-running cricket festival in the world on an ‘out’ ground. Cheltenham College provides the glorious venue for twelve days of first-class cricket every July.
Four festivals are organised under the Cheltenham Festivals umbrella and each brings a unique buzz to the centre of town:
The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival (7-16 October 2011) is the world’s oldest literature festival. With 350 events over ten days the festival plays host to the biggest names in literature, politics and entertainment. One recent festival featured Vince Cable, Judi Dench, Jeremy Paxman, Michael Palin, Victoria Glendinning, Matthew D’Ancona, Michael Morpurgo and AC Grayling – and that was just on the first Saturday. But the best of the festival is often the small, offbeat performance, an eye-opening education event, debate or workshop with a name you haven’t heard of. Yet.
The HSBC Cheltenham Music Festival (29 June - 10 July 2011) is the senior arts festival, held every year for more than 60 years. But this international festival has always been a celebration of the new as well, notching up more than 200 premieres since the very first, by Benjamin Britten, in 1945. It stays true to its classical heart but now draws in everything from world music and folk traditions to cabaret and movie scores in an ever-increasing variety of concerts, films, debates and performances.
The Cheltenham Jazz Festival (April - May 2012) is equally committed to fostering new talent and takes its infectious combination of different jazz traditions into the streets and parks and pubs of Cheltenham as well as its concert venues.
.jpg) Richard Branson and Jonathon Porritt share a platform at the Science Festival.
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The newest of the Cheltenham Festivals quartet, the Cheltenham Science Festival (June 2012) celebrates and communicates science and the importance and fun of science through events, explosions, debates, hands-on demonstrations and the central exhibition that always surprises and amazes young and old alike.
Back at the racecourse every year are two major music festivals. Wychwood (8 - 10 June 2012) is a cool, green, family-friendly mix of world music and folk with enough indie, rock and comedy to keep you surprised and happy. That and a wonderful variety of food, weird and wacky stalls and sideshows.
Later in the summer, Greenbelt (26 - 29 August 2011) combines a strong Christian spirit with music, discussion, politics, food, art and social action.
In the nearby countryside, the proudly small 2000 Trees Festival (15 & 16 July 2011) also has a strongly green and ethical flavour and treats an audience limited to just a few thousand to an eclectic mix of rock, folk and indie.
Back in the town itself, Cheltenham Folk Festival (February 2012) comes to the town’s pubs and Town Hall every February and provides a platform both for new talent and established names in folk music from home and abroad. Ceilidhs, concerts, morris, children’s events, humour, food and drink and a market all combine to banish the winter blues.
Cheltenham’s most local festival is also its oldest. Started in 1926, the Cheltenham Festival of Performing Arts (9 - 20 May 2012) combines dance, music, poetry and drama with hundreds of participants competing in dozens of contests.
Cheltenham Food & Drink Festival (17 - 19 June 2011) occupies the lovely Montpellier Gardens every June and features kitchen demos, talks, music and street theatre to accompany the huge variety of mouth-watering regional cheeses, breads, fruit, meats, chocolate, pasta, fish, wine, beer, cider, ice cream, liqueurs and more. Smaller but equally tasty is the Cheltenham Beer Festival which promotes fine local beers and breweries, local music and the local branch of the Samaritans for one day only every July. They even let in a bit of cider and perry too.
Also in June is the brilliant quirky surprising Ukelele Festival of Great Britain (17-19 June 2011), a gathering of uke players and star performers from all over the world. You'll be welcome even if you've never heard a ukelele played in earnest before. You'll hear tunes from Motorhead to Beethoven, from jazz and blues and pop and plenty of original music too. You can't fail to leave with a smile on your face.
Cheltenham Open Studios (June 2013) is a festival of local art and opens the doors of more than 70 galleries, venues and homes in and around Cheltenham every other year, showing off contemporary painting, drawing, textiles, ceramics, photography and sculpture.
The new kid on the block last year was the Cheltenham Film Festival (November 2011) whose debut year featured a wonderful celebration of blockbusters and mainstream movies, world cinema, independent and student films in a series of venues across the town centre. The organisers are still offering partnership and sponsorship opportunities for 2011 – use the contact page on this site and we will pass on your details if you are interested in supporting this exciting addition to our festival calendar.
Two more newcomers are the Cheltenham Poetry Festival whose first year brought poems and poets (and music and comedy and multimedia events) to more than a dozen pubs, schools, bars, chapels and other venues across the town this March/April and the Cheltenham Comedy Festival (15-19 November 2011), featuring big stars like Jeremy Hardy and Ed Byrne but new names, fringe and oddball events and family fun too.
But Cheltenham's festival family keeps growing. Watch out for the new Cheltenham Design Festival which will celebrate the very best in product design, photography, illustration, fashion, architecture, garden design, graphic and digital design - and most importantly it will seek to promote and inspire our next generation of outstanding young designers.
Member of Parliament for Cheltenham
working for a fairer,
greener, safer community
