Events Invitation 2023

Dear Friend

Welcome to the Bushey Festival, which is the original and oldest community festival running in Bushey, having started in its current form 40 years ago in 1983. Not to be confused with Bushfest, which is a commercial enterprise running over two days, we are run completely by volunteers and funded with the support of the community and grants in order make events free or as affordable as possible.

Without general Council funding it’s immensely important that we engage local organisations who want to share in our vision to promote Bushey as a great community to live and work in. This year we start on Friday 30 June and run for ten days with a grand finale Festival in the Park on Sunday 9 July. Last year’s Festival in the Park attracted some 5000 festival goers. Once again and of increased significance, our focus is about bringing the community together.

You will no doubt have been or are thinking about planning your own event(s) for this year and we invite you to use the Festival period to help promote and share them more widely. The Festival has always had a large and varied programme of events and activities which, together, celebrate all that is good about living in Bushey. Last year we had around 25 Festival events and it would be good to build on that in 2023.

Our role is to organise a number of events and to promote those put on by other community organisations as a whole via social media, website, posters and a programme delivered to every home in the WD23 postal area. We share in the belief that community orientated groups and the people they serve benefit hugely from the mutual support generated.

The Festival runs from 30 June to 9 July and we hope that many of you will want to host an event during that period so that we can have a concentrated series of events drawing in as wide a variety of people as possible. Whilst traditionally arts, crafts, music, dance, health and children focussed, if it’s community building orientated we would love to include you. If you have already planned events at different times, please let us know and we will be happy to see how we can promote these in other ways.

Please contact us on bushey.festival@outlook.com or if you’d prefer an informal chat please ring Steve Francis (Festival Vice Chair) on 0208 386 0132 or 07946 576521 or Alan Guthrie-Jones (Festival Committee Member) on 0208 950 2891 or 07833 582975.

With best wishes from the Bushey Festival Committee