Festival news 2012

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Riverside Festival set to bring Soar to life

AN annual free family festival is set to bring a stretch of the River Soar to life with a weekend of fun and colourful activities.

The Riverside Festival takes place on the Mile Straight, Western Boulevard and Bede Park, on Saturday, June 9, and Sunday, June 10.

The event, which is one of the city's biggest free festivals, includes live music, activities for children and families, boat parades and fun on the River Soar, and eco-themed workshops.

Visitors will be able to hear the best local musical talent, including runners-up and winners of the annual Original Bands Showcase, in which bands compete for the chance to join the start-studded line-up of the city's Summer Sundae Weekender music festival.

The river itself will stage a decorated boat competition and boat rally, as well as floating tea shop, demonstrations, boat trips and relaxing riverside jazz music. Green-themed events include a huge range of activities from Green Light, a collective of local environmental groups, who will intrigue visitors with a scrap store challenge, mini beast hunt, swap shop and bird box making.

There will also be an arts market, carpentry and willow weaving workshops, and BBC Radio Leicester's Grown Your Own vegetables workshop. A mini cinema will show short films and cycling movies, as well as rare archive footage of Leicester.

Cycling will also take centre stage at the Ride Leicester Bike Park, offering parking and free bike mechanic classes. More adventurous cyclists will be able to take part in an organised bike ride from Leicester to Loughborough, where a spectacular free show combining music, video, fireworks and dancing will be staged as part of the London 2012 Festival.

Younger visitors to the Riverside Festival on Saturday will also be able to get up close to a giant metal whale, into which audiences can venture to experience a charming theatre performance, or choose to venture into the surreal world of magnified wonders with the Bee Cart. On Sunday, Compost Mentis - a talking puppet compost heap - will bring a smile to the faces of visitors of all ages. Other activities include workshops transforming junk into musical instruments, children's art workshops, circus skills, stilt walkers, fire breathing and dancing, story telling and adventure to ancient Greece.

The Riverside Festival is organised by Leicester City Council, and sponsored by local housing provider Riverside, which is based on the banks of the River Soar. Leicester assistant city mayor for heritage, leisure and sport, Cllr Piara Singh Clair, said: "The Riverside Festival has proved to be a hugely popular event for visitors of all ages, and this year's events look set to continue that theme of bringing family fun to the heart of the city.

"I'd encourage anyone who has not sampled this wonderful festival before to visit and see what's on offer, as there's sure to be something for everyone on offer." Riverside assistant director of operations, Paul Jones, added: "This is the eighth year that we have been involved with the Leicester Riverside Festival, and we are pleased to be sponsoring it again. "On the Saturday we will again be hosting activities in and around our office, and on the park. Our tenants from across the Midlands will also again be invited to come along to meet the staff and enjoy a family fun-filled day."

Full details of the Riverside Festival are available on the LCC web site.

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