“We’re back!” say Bristol’s Upfest “This year, Upfest returns as Upfest presents… a seventeen day cultural programme. In place of our weekend festival, Upfest will return in 2024 in a new guise, with many new artworks being painted across 2 weeks. Upfest Presents will pop-up at multiple venues across Bedminster and wider BS3 with free to attend workshops, live painting, artist talks, arts activities, panel discussions, theatre, comedy and tours exploring the area”.
The festival will happen between the 17th of May and 2nd of June 2024 .
The festival that took a break last year due to the cost of making it all happen, a tough call in the current climate as much as everything else, returned triumphantly after Covid in 2022. Indeed we listed the 2022 festival right up there at the top of 2022 end of year art round up best of feature. Read the full Organ review of 2022 here – ORGAN THING: Upfest, It was just cheering, the whole thing, the whole weekend in the Bristol sunshine, the people, the art, the positive feeling around Bedminster for Upfest 2022…
More Organ coverage of Upfest
And here’s the full statement from the organisers…
“This year, Upfest Presents…an 17 day cultural programme,
In place of its weekend festival, Upfest will return in 2024 in a new guise, with many new artworks being painted across 2 weeks. Upfest Presents will pop-up at multiple venues across Bedminster and wider BS3 with free to attend workshops, live painting, artist talks, arts activities, panel discussions, theatre, comedy and tours exploring the area.
Artists will be invited to paint large scale murals on buildings throughout the area, with a schedule available for visitors to pop by and see their progress. They will also take part in mini paint-jams, talks and panel discussions about their work and visitors and artists alike will be invited to curated events at venues in Bedminster and beyond.
With over 100 artist spots, registrations are now open to attend and paint the walls of Bedminster, mentor, showcase artwork, live paint and collaborate with other artists throughout the event. Applications will be taken until Sunday the 25th Feb Register here
The Upfest Presents crowdfunder is up and running with the aim to raise £10,000 to support all the activities. The more money raised, the more events, murals and activities for all the family will be created as part of the programme. Visit Fundsurfer to donate
Festival co-founder Stephen Hayles explains;
“Upfest Presents… represents a new incarnation for the festival this year, more focussed on programming the mural creation with a huge spectrum of other activities across a 2 week period. This means we won’t have a festival in the park but means we can spread the joy of Upfest across 17 days including 3 weekends. There will be tons for artists, art lovers and families to get involved in, while you can pop down and see murals being created throughout the whole period. Huge thanks to Arts Council England for giving us the opportunity to create the event this year and we’re looking forward to supporting local artists as well as welcoming artists from all over the world to Bristol.”
By the way, there are still a couple of the limited edition prints left of the piece I painted at Upfest in 2022
THE ORGAN 