Albion Fairs

Albion Fairs was the general name for the second wave of East Anglian Fairs, running from 1978 until 1982. There were further fairs in the same tradition most years until the end of the 1980s.

The East Anglian Fairs began with the Barsham Medieval Faire in 1972, and developed into a significant feature of rural counterculture in Britain, drawing on aspects of pop festival culture, the reinvention of traditional rural or nomadic seasonal gatherings, and a back-to-the-land early green ethos. The voluntary organisers worked under the name of the East Anglian Arts Trust (EAAT). Barsham Faire ran annually on the August Bank Holiday until 1976. In 1976 EAAT revived the Bungay May Horse Fair, which was also held in 1977. An ad hoc group of fair organisers and crew participated in the Eye Show in August 1977. This led to the formation,in the winter of 1977/1978, of Albion Fairs.

Some events used the spelling Fayre or Faire.

In the 1990s and 2000s a fairly vibrant if not quite as accessible successor to the Fairs in the region was organised as the mostly biennial gatherings of Dance Camp East.

External links

• The East Anglian Fairs, 1972-1986
• Dance Camp East

The core to me was the discovery of ‘The Elemental Harmomiser’ New Rituals to Old Forces, by a radical performance artist called Bruce Lacey. For me at least, and others I knew, these outlandish and inventive artistic events integrated aspects of psychedelic experience into ordinary consciousness, and society. Where else to see ten or a dozen fully and properly dressed ladies up on stage merrily dancing a naughty can-can, a regular Cafe a la Folies Bergere under the light of the moon, in a Suffolk field. Those decades may have passed into misty eyed memory but it does not stop there. From psychedelic grandad Rog Read writer of "LSD - Blew Out Grandad's Windows;Integrating Psychedelic Experience"

Bibliography

• Richard Barnes (1982) Sun in the East: Norfolk and Suffolk Fairs. Kirstead, Norfolk: RB Photographic. ISBN 978-0-9508701-0-6.
• George McKay (1996) Senseless Acts of Beauty: Cultures of Resistance since the Sixties, chapter one 'The free festivals and Fairs of Albion'. London: Verso. ISBN 978-1-85984-028-3.
• Gill Seyfang et al., eds. (2005) The Rising Sun: Celebrating Dance Camp East. Norwich: Dance Camp East. ISBN 978-0-9550236-0-6.