This weekend, Reigate town centre will play host to an entire weekend of free entertainment. The Reigate Summer Festival will pull together a wealth of local creative and cultural talent, making it a spectacle not to be missed.
We caught up with one of the founders Tim Glynne-Jones to find out more.
Tell us how the festival came about.
Reigate Summer Festival evolved out of New Music Fest, which started back in 2014, and was held at local rugby clubs. This year there were no venues available to host the event and we found ourselves homeless. At this time, Karen Gerrard from Reigate College was also thinking about pairing up New Music Nights with the Surrey Arts Open Studio – we’d always harboured an idea of making Reigate a cultural destination, because there is so much that goes on in the town, such as musical theatre groups, choirs, comedy and live music, all of which promote themselves individually. It made sense to join forces and create something that would be probably more prominent than anything we could do individually.
With the unwavering support of Reigate & Banstead Council and Reigate Business Guild, we were able to pull the dream together and make it a reality.
What highlights should we look out for?
It’s hard to predict where the highlights could come from. There are a variety of venues, each showing something unique. The Tunnel Stage and Clocktower Stage are hosting mostly rock and pop acts, as well as a couple of big bands, while the Reigate Methodist Church is playing host to choirs, classical music, drama and dance. In addition, Reigate Community Centre is showing an art exhibition, the cinema has screenings of locally made films, Pilgrim Brewery will have a Jazz and Smooth Sounds Stage, and there will be book signings at Waterstones. With this many events going on, the highlight could come from anywhere, so go and see as much as you can.
What else do we need to know?
The event is being opened by the Mayor Cllr Eddy Humphreys and his wife Sarah, at 5:30pm on Friday 14th June, at the Clocktower Stage, followed by an evening of performances by musicians from Reigate College and Reigate and Redhill Music & Drama Festival.
As well as the main stages, there is also what we’re calling the “Fringe Trail”, which encompasses local pubs, Pilgrim Brewery, Reigate Community Centre, The Cage, Waterstones, Somers Hall and more. You can see the full list of venues here.
If you really want to look the part, we’ve also got Reigate Festival T-shirts that you can buy via our website.
Whilst the Festival is free, and knowing how generous the people of Reigate are, we realised we could use this opportunity to help raise funds for three local charities – Renewed Hope, which provides support for local homeless people, Loveworks, a local foodbank charity, and Reigate Community Centre. Any donations we receive will be split three ways between the charities.
How do you see it growing going forward?
The festival has exceeded our expectations in terms of what’s happening and how many people have come on board, so in many ways we’re where we hoped to be after two or three years.
Going forward, as well as there being opportunities to sponsor the event, we’d also like to see the Summer Festival turning into something similar to the Christmas Fayre, with road closures, more venues taking part and more acts getting involved.
We also have a long held ambition to build a performance venue in Reigate; not just for us but for all the local arts groups, as well as schools and maybe some touring acts. So hopefully this festival can pave the way for that as well.
If you’d like more information about what’s on next weekend, the full schedule of events can be found here.
We’d like to take this opportunity to wish everyone involved in the event the best of luck and we hope it’s a massive success.
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