Festivals set to make Brighton shine in May 2013
2012 was the most successful year yet for the festivals taking place in Brighton each May and they will return bigger and brighter in 2013, bringing the annual cultural extravaganza to the UK's most cosmopolitan 'city by the sea'.
The collection of festivals, including Brighton Festival, Brighton Fringe, Artist's Open Houses and HOUSE, will return from 4th May 2013 to transform the south coast city into the epicentre of cutting edge music, dance, visual art, free events, outdoor performance, spoken word, theatre and film.In 2013, one focus for the collective festivals will be the youth market and each is bringing something new to this particular audience.
Brighton Festival, one of Europe's leading arts festivals and well known for their ambitious commissioning and producing, reported 2012 as their strongest year yet with 150,000 people attending 351 performances, 143 events and 28 commissions and premieres. In 2013, Brighton Festival - now in its 47th year - will run from 4th to 26th May. They are delighted to announce the Guest Director will be celebrated poet, writer, broadcaster and previous Children's Laureate Michael Rosen who is taking on this prestigious role for 2013, following Vanessa Redgrave, Anish Kapoor, Aung San Su Kyi and Brian Eno.In 2013 Brighton Festival are partnering with Collected Works, the organisation behind City Reads, to run the first ever Young City Reads. Readers across the city will be encouraged to read and review a yet to be announced book as well as attend a selection of themed cultural events. The full Brighton Festival programme will be launched in February.
In 2012 Brighton Fringe, led by new Managing Director Julian Caddy, saw a record-breaking 743 individual events and 3,622 performances at 192 venues across the city and over 206,000 attendees; a 14.5% increase on 2011. Because of this success, Brighton Fringe has announced that next year's festival will be extended to four weeks running from 4th May to 2nd June, including the May half term. In 2013, Brighton Fringe will be collaborating with the International Youth Arts Festival and IdeasTap, among many others.
For 2012's Artists Open Houses festival, over 1,000 artists showcased their work to the public in 220 homes & studios across Brighton & Hove and beyond. The Artists Open Houses festival continues to grow in quality, quantity and innovation and 2013 promises to continue this trend. The festival will run every weekend throughout May.
HOUSE is the youngest festival of the four but has already built up a reputation for providing ambitious and thought provoking visual arts events. In 2013 they welcome Mariele Neudecker, an artist who works with photography, sculpture, music and video installation. Her main installation will be in the splendid Regency Town House in Hove, where each storey of the building will represent a different level of the planet following Neudecker's trip to Greenland living on ice and hunting with Inuits.
More information available at: visitbrighton.com/culture/festivals
