West End Festival

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Samba Ya Bamba brass section at the 2005 Opening Parade.

The West End Festival is an annual festival in the West End of Glasgow, Scotland.

1 History
2 Main Events
3 Awards
4 Main Venues
5 See also
6 External link

[edit] History

The West End Festival in Glasgow was started in 1996 by Michael Dale as a small local festival centred on Byres Road.

It has since become the biggest festival in Glasgow's cultural calendar [1] with events running for 16 days in June both indoor and out. It has often been used as a model for other festival startups, as with minimal local authority or Scottish Arts Council funding it has continued to grow year on year. Its centrepiece carnival parade is the largest carnival event in the UK after Notting Hill in London. In 2006 the parade day ran congruently with the Glasgow Mela, when organisers billed it as "Scotland's Mardi Gras" and over 100,000 people took to the streets and parks.[2].

[edit] Main Events

The festival - now Glasgow's largest and most popular event - features a wide-ranging selection of nearly 400 events. Prominent is an excellent music programme, innovative outdoor theatre, comedy, drama, guided walks, talks, film, children's events, various local street celebrations and markets, and the internationally well-known Carnival Parade and Street Party on the opening Sunday. It has also hosted a series of "one off" events such as The Longest Day (1998 / 99), The Ideal Hut Show (in conjunction with Glasgow's Year of Architecture) and in 2004 a spectacular free outdoor concert by local heroes Belle and Sebastian in the Glasgow Botanic Gardens and in 2006 an epic outdoor production with 60 actors based on the life of Jesus.

[edit] Awards

The festival was placed in the top 30 festivals in Europe by the Independent newspaper, the other Scottish festivals listed were the Edinburgh Festival and T in the Park in Kinross. It was also listed in 2006 as the no.1 reason to visit Glasgow on the Expedia travel site. The free 2004 Belle and Sebastian concert was voted in the top 20 gigs of all time by the Scotsman newspaper in 2007.