The festival

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Hat Fair 2011

Like every first weekend of July for 37 years, the quiet city of Winchester goes wilde for three days: Street out companies and buskers take over the the former Capital of England.

Kate Hazel, Hat Fair’s new artistic director since December 2010, offers to the city 35 companies and buskers, amongst whom will be presented three French ZEPA companies, Beau Geste, Les Apostrophés and Charli Encor, who will be performing their first «Wheelchairs Ballet» abroad. Eight ZEPA British artists and companies are part of the 2011 programme: Wet Picnic, Stickleback Plasticus, The River people, Ragroof Theatre, Plunge Boom, Hoodwink, George Orange, and NoFit State Circus, who will be performing Barricade by the River Itchen banks on Saturday night.

Hat Fair also gives the opportunity to eight students from the University of Winchester’s Bachelor of Street Arts to take part in the festival with their own walkabouts and a site-specific show on Cathedral Green. And two companies discovered in Emerge , the festival for emerging artists, Bright Shadow and Beni the Buzzard will also be there.

Find out more about the 2011 programme

Hat Fair 2010

Winchester Hat Fair is England’s oldest dedicated ‘Street Arts Festival’; in 2010 we will celebrate the 36th year of the event.

At Hat Fair we are very proud to have commissioned and developed new work with many Artists and Companies over the last 36 years. The Hat Fair team is strongly dedicated to the development of the Street Arts sector in the UK.

The Artistic Director, Sian Thomas is also a very active advocate for Street Arts in the UK, she is a member of the ISAN board, the Without Walls consortium and the BAFA association. Mike Martins (Associate Producer) also works strategically as a Creative Producer of Outdoor Theatre and Circus at Theatre Bristol and alongside other Outdoor Arts Festivals.

We also have a wonderful and enthusiastic team of volunteers and interns to assist with the running of the event itself. The festival itself is woven into fabric of the city itself, utilizing many streets, greens and nooks and crannies of beautiful historic Winchester. We are also developing other Outdoor Arts projects around Hampshire.

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