Nether Edge Festival - 2025

Nether Edge held its eleventh Festival this September - 80 events over nine days in more than 20 venues. The Festival was opened by our MP, Abtisam Mohammed, at the Inflatable Carnival at Common Ground, a joyful occasion that set the tone for the following nine days, leading up to the closing event, the larger-than-ever Party in the Park in Chelsea Park. Despite a few wet days during this period, the outdoor events escaped the worst of it and feedback from the thousands of folk who took part in the Festival has been very positive indeed. This year, for the first time, an online evaluation survey is being undertaken.

The Festival is a celebration of our community’s talents and energies and covers a wide range of activities, clustered into seven themes: Arts & Crafts; Family & Community; Food & Drink; Games, Sports & Wellbeing; Drama, Literature & Film; Music & Dance; and Talks & Walks. The Planning Group of about twelve people meets monthly to scout and support events, some new and some repeat, and to put the final programme together. We have a Festival website and we distributed over 3,000 printed programmes. More of the bookings have been made on-line this year and this helps event- holders to plan for expected numbers. A large majority of events were booked out completely. The Festival philosophy is to make as many events as possible free so that they are available to all; participants responded generously to requests for donations. NENG supports the finances, and kind donations were received from Rosalind Watchorn and Steve Ojari (Bannerdale Osteopaths), though the Festival is almost self-funding.

We have many new events at each Festival and this year we had the novelty of a show that transferred from the Edinburgh Fringe about a Sheffield shop in the 1980-90s (Grandma’s Shop) and an art installation / crazy golf game that had previously shown at Saltaire, Brighton and Dusseldorf (My Crazy Family Golf by Watts and Dad). The Festival is grateful to St Peter’s and St Oswald’s Church for housing this - one of more than 20 venues the length and breadth of Nether Edge who kindly hosted events.

The Festival would not be possible without the energetic support of its volunteers and this year we recruited a whole band of new volunteers whom we thank most sincerely. We trust they enjoyed their experience of giving to their community and that they will continue with the Festival for the coming year.

Looking ahead to the 2026 Festival, the Planning Group will start its work on January 15th (the Group meets the 3rd Thursday of the month) with an open meeting for anyone who is interested in the work of the Festival Planning Group and wants to consider joining it. After co/Chairing six Festivals, Mark Doel will be stepping back, but Kate Housden will continue in her role as co-Chair. Each of the seven themes has its own coordinator and we are looking for people who are interested to join as co-leads for these themes.

Contact: netheredgefestival@gmail.com