Forest Festival

The Forest Festival is an annual event managed and funded through the Great Western Community Forest team. It is a free family event that has been running successfully for eight years, celebrating trees and their products as well as promoting a greener lifestyle. The event also provides information about the developing Forest project and how people can get involved.

Forest Festival provides a mix of great family entertainment, education, traditional skills and crafts, children’s workshops, live music, theatre, displays and wholesome food.  A high percentage of those involved live within the Great Western Community Forest boundary and many are local to Swindon.

The unique selling point for Forest Festival is that the event is completely free to the public with only a limited number of retail outlets invited. It is a non-commercial enterprise making it inclusive for everyone.

Forest Festival 2008

Forest Festival is ten years old! The Great Western Community Forest team are celebrating this and to make the event even better we’re joining up with the new Woodland Games initiative for an even bigger event! Forest Festival and Woodland Games 2008 promise fantastic family fun in the beautiful, historic setting of the Lawn.

• Try some physical activities with a difference – join Frisbee golf, quoits and boules.
• Explore fun and functional ways of staying fit and healthy.
• Pick up ideas for keeping active and getting out and enjoying the Great Western Community Forest woodlands.
• Improve your health and be active in Green Spaces – enjoy a Health Walk around the Lawn.

Some of the activities on offer will include exciting and unusual outdoor games, circus skills, interactive displays and workshops. Bring along your bicycle, try out our riding agility course or choose to go on a guided cycle ride.  Free cyclometer for everyone who rides his or her bicycle to Forest Festival!

The Forest Festival Stage will once again have a packed programme of live music, dance and performance and as always, local groups and organisations will be on hand to give inspiration and information on local campaigns.  

Forest Festival organiser, Heather Lilley, says “It’s fantastic that Forest Festival is celebrating 10 years – I never imagined how successful an event it would become! The Community Forest team are really pleased to have support from Thames Water again this year and to join hands with the new Woodland Games initiative funded by Natural England is a great opportunity. The Festival has become a wonderful fixture in local people’s diaries - as well as many familiar activities, workshops and stalls we work hard to have new, fresh ideas each year so that people can return and still have a new experience”.

Further information

For further information please contact Heather Lilley on 01793 466317; email: hlilley@swindon.gov.uk or Simon Pitman on 01793 466324; email: spitman@swindon.gov.uk.

A copy of the Festival flyer can be downloaded as pdf (1,300Kb) here.