Chesterfield Children’s Festival is a new, annual, free family festival by Junction Arts

On 29^th and 30^th July 2023 we held the first Chesterfield Children’s Festival at Queen’s Park. The Children’s Festival is primarily an arts and culture festival for children of all ages and their wider families to explore the arts and creativity in a safe and accessible way.

Over 8000 people attended, with over 4000 people participating in the weekend’s workshops and activities. Across the weekend Junction Arts provided the opportunity for families to spend time together whilst enjoying many different forms of arts and culture. The line-up included live music; a nursery rhyme set from Back Chat Brass, Disney hits played by string quartet Highly Strung and traditional Mexican music from Mariachi Las Adelitas UK. There were also storytelling and theatre workshops including learning Makaton with Marie the Makaton Mouse.

Across the weekend there was free tie-dye workshops with local artists Lucie Maycock and Wendy Ducksbury, supported by our fantastic volunteers. There was so much arts and culture packed into one weekend and we can’t wait to do it again next year. See our gallery to see what else took place at our first Chesterfield Children’s Festival.

A special part of our first Chesterfield Children’s Festival was a new commission ‘The Garden of Imagination’. Junction Arts commissioned artists Monika Johnson, Phil Pearson and Rachel Scanlon to work with three local schools to create an interactive artwork for the festival. During May and June the artists worked with Year 4 pupils from Spire Junior School, Sharley Park Community School and New Bolsover Primary to create a story, props and a soundscape for ‘The Garden of Imagination’. The piece featured across the weekend and had live performances; The Garden of Imagination took the form of a child’s bedroom and had lots of interactive elements for children to play with, including sound sensors and fantasy characters.

We will be creating a Chesterfield Children’s Festival youth planning group to assist us in programming the festival in 2024, if you or someone you know would be interested in joining our planning group please get in contact with us.

Quote from Parent “We had an amazing time, the children got to experience so many different things from dancing around at the silent disco tour to trying out some circus skills! We loved the comedy show and the brass band that played my little ones’ favourite nursery rhymes.  I can’t believe it was all free.”