Date announced for Chesterfield Children's Festival 2024

The free event organised by Junction Arts and funded by Arts Council England, is a two-day festival for families that celebrates the joy of childhood, imagination and play.

Last year over 8,000 families attended the event, with over 4,000 children participating in the activities, which ranged from yoga classes to tie-dye workshops! Other highlights of the weekend included live music, comedy for kids, silent disco walking tours, theatre, Chinese storytelling and actual reality arcade games. The event attracted thousands of tourists from outside of the town, bringing over 3,500 people into Chesterfield.

New for 2024 is the Project Producers; a group of volunteers aged between 15-20 years of age that will help advise and help plan the festival alongside Junction Arts. The group was formed earlier this year, and the idea is to give young people in Chesterfield an opportunity to have their say and develop some event planning skills.

This year’s event will take place on the first weekend of the summer holidays, 10 am – 4 pm each day. The festival is completely free, no booking is required, and visitors can turn up on the day to enjoy the activities.

The full festival line-up will be announced in June but acts confirmed so far include; Block Buster Factory, an award-winning immersive street show, where members of the public get to be part of a live movie set! There will also be an interactive family catwalk, family life drawing workshops and Take Flight – an aerial workshop for babies and their grown-ups!

To make the festival more accessible, Junction Arts has enlisted the help of RevoLOOtion, which provides mobile vehicles that enable disabled children and adults to use the toilet or be changed with dignity and respect, the RevoLOOtion service helps to break down barriers that often exclude them from participating in activities and events.

Jemma Burton, Project Coordinator from Junction Arts said: “We had an amazing response to the festival last year and I’m delighted that we are bringing it back to Chesterfield this summer. We’re also excited to have our Project Producers working with us this year, the group of young people are helping us to shape the festival by sharing their thoughts and experiences, as well as volunteering to plan and manage parts of the event. It’s great to have some youthful energy and creativity in the team!

“The full line-up is still being worked on, but I can say that we’ll have lots of creative activities for children of all ages to get involved in, plus some amazing live entertainment – we can’t wait to see you there.”

For further information visit: www.junctionarts.org or follow @junctionartuk on social media.