Ip-Art Festival Launched In Ipswich

12 April 2013, 14:02 | Updated: 12 April 2013, 14:36

Ipswich's arts festival's been launched and the organisers are expecting more people than ever to join in.

They'll be plays, concerts and exhibitions and this year they be an open air showing the film Les Miserables too.

The festival launches on June 21st with a weekend of free events as “Celebrate Ipswich” brings fairies to the Cornhill, craft markets to St Peter’s Street and Ironmen to the Waterfront.
 
Christchurch Park is going to be the backdrop for some of the festival favourites again, including Global Rhythms, the Indian Summer Mela, and the annual Ipswich Music Day.

Highlights also include:
 
Brian Blessed hosting The Film Night Spectacular, with a firework finale.
 
Les Miserables on the big screen in the park.
 
And a Big Top with international burlesque, vaudevillian circus performers, fire breathers and aerial artistes.

James Young, Ip-art festival organiser, 2013 said: "Ip-art 2013 combines established favourites with some new 'faces' and is designed to appeal to everyone not only in Ipswich but in the wider region. Highlights include Music Day, a films night concert in the park with Brian Blessed, the Mela, Sherlock Holmes, a silent cinema series and a Big Top. Literature will feature in its own right as a stand-alone autumn festival. It will also feature the county's first open-air screening of smash hit Les Miserables in Christchurch Park. Ip-art continues to attract hundreds of thousands of people and is now the biggest arts festival in East Anglia. Importantly, many events are free so while we offer a wide cultural experience we are not elitist and attract people from all walks of life."