When: 20 – 22 July 2018
Where: Baldersby Park, Topcliffe, North Yorkshire
It’s only a matter of a few weeks before the Deer Shed Festival will once more be upon us. For the ninth consecutive year it will be returning to its traditional time and place, the penultimate weekend in July in the beautiful undulating surroundings of Baldersby Park, near to the North Yorkshire market town of Thirsk.
And what is even more, with this year’s new site lay-out, main stage area and an expanded music, arts and science programme, Deer Shed Festival just keeps on going from strength to strength.
Headlining 2018’s truly excellent musical line-up are Goldfrapp, the supreme, stylistic synthpop duo of Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory; Derbyshire’s mighty Drenge, who will be bringing with them their fearsome post-grunge racket, new single ‘This Dance’ – their first release in some three years – and what lead guitarist Eoin Loveless promises to be “something really special for this occasion”; and a most welcome Deer Shed return for Sunderland’s Field Music, who to greet the arrival of their sixth album Open Here are due to appear on the main stage with an expanded orchestral line-up of strings, brass, wind and percussion.
Also appearing across Deer Shed’s five music stages over the course of the weekend will be an incredibly strong supporting cast, one that includes such diverse creative talents as Public Service Broadcasting; former Supergrass frontman Gaz Coombes; the superb New York cult chanteuse Joan As Police Woman; Kate Stables’ fascinating musical project, This Is The Kit; and the powerful, politicised post-punk voice of Nadine Shah.
The full Music line-up is HERE
But for anyone who has ever been to Deer Shed Festival before you will know that it is about so much more than just music. It is an event aimed at families in general and children in particular; almost half of those attending Deer Shed year after year are aged 15 or under. And also in firm keeping with all previous years, Deer Shed 9 is built around a central theme. For 2018 it is that of Making Waves and more than 120 arts and science workshops for kids are being created this year with this very concept in mind.
Sea creatures will be made out of recycled materials (confirming Deer Shed’s strong commitment to the environment); there will be water rockets, remote control sailing boats on the site’s ornamental lake, and the ever-popular Marine Forensics workshop. Aside from water, sound waves and vibrations are also to be explored and an interactive “sound garden” by sonic installation specialist Dan Fox is also going to be built whereby the sounds of the audience will affect the piece’s structure.
All of the Science events can be seen HERE
And that is long before we even get round to talking about the various delights of Draughtboxing, the unique 6-hole Crazy Golf experience, Divine Cricket, Treeclimbing, Plogging (a Swedish fitness craze, apparently), Sock Wrestling and that perennial Baldersby Park favourite, Swingball (made locally in Topcliffe village and still going remarkably strong after being hammered into oblivion by thousands of kids over the past nine years) and sundry other activities that will be available on the festival’s huge Sports Arena.
For all things Sporty please head HERE
Another strong feature of Deer Shed Festival over its nine year hsitory has been its Comedy line-up and given that half of its audience are children it has consistently shown remarkable balance and agility in walking that PG tightrope. This year is no exception when Deer Shed welcomes to its Bigtop Stage the great comedic talents of James Acaster, Daliso Chaponda, Thronecast presenter Rachel Parris and returning hero Justin Moorhouse, amongst many more top turns besides.
Comedy can be found HERE
Not only is there a great musical and comedy bill this year, there is also an extensive programme of Spoken Word and Literary events, including what should be vastly entertaining, informal and candid talks with Chris Difford from Squeeze, celebrated avant-garde performance artist Cosey Fanni Tutti and author and Guardian journalist Lucy Mangan.
The Spoken Word and Literary events are all listed HERE
And we haven’t even begun to speak yet about Wilderwild – a unique festival space given over to the celebration of nature and providing children of all ages with the opportunity to get involved in den-making, land art and various other wonderful woodland-based activities – Wellbeing, Cinema and the festival’s excellent provision of Food and Drink, the vast majority of which comes courtesy of quality local vendors.
For full details on all that Deer Shed Festival 9 has to offer please go HERE
Deer Shed Festival has a capacity of 10,000 people and more than 85% of this year’s tickets allocation has already been sold. As is routinely the case, it will sell out. The month of June provides you with the last chance to save £10 on each Deer Shed Festival 9 adult ticket before they enter Tier 4 prices at midnight on Saturday 30th June. Get yours from www.deershedfestival.com/tickets before it is too late.
Photos: Simon Godley
