About Duffield Arts Festival
Duffield Arts Festival is an annual not-for-profit festival held in the Derbyshire village of Duffield, just north of the City of Derby. The festival offers a broad programme of performances, workshops and talks across the fields of music, drama, art and books, plus much more.
The festival aims to celebrate Duffield’s community by providing something for everyone, whatever your age, background or experience. The variety of events held at Duffield Arts Festival range from music shows, dance performances, art exhibitions, story writing competitions, and not forgetting the Duffield Scarecrow Festival, plus many more events.
Festival History
2016
Duffield Arts Festival was founded in 2016 by village resident Jonathan Leach following a desire for more community events in the village.
The inaugural 2016 Arts Festival featured a variety of shows and exhibitions across several venues in Duffield including:
- ghost talks
- pianoathon – an open event for people to play on the piano
- Singing Spectacular
- Childrens plays
- Spoken Word Competition
- Several arts stall and exhibitions
The festival also featured a village-wide scarecrow trail where households and local businesses were invited to create a scarecrow based on a well known fictional character of their choosing. Over 50 scarecrows were created for the 2016 festival, and all were dotted at various locations all over the village.
Competitions also formed a part of the 2016 festival including a Story Writing Competition and a Childrens Colouring Competition, both of which were open to entrants in the village and beyond.
2017
Following on from a successful first event in 2016, the 2017 Arts Festival saw the scarecrow trail extended to run across five days. The second Duffield Arts festival was another resounding success with several events taking place throughout the village.
2018
The third Duffield Arts Festival followed a similar format to 2017 and was another huge success.
2019
Building on from the success of previous years the 2019 festival saw the village scarecrow trail move to run a week before the main arts festival, and in effect become an event in its own right. Several of the scarecrows would remain on display for the main arts festival the following week.
2020
As with many other events across the country Duffield Arts Festival didn’t take place in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
2021
Following the unfortunate cancellation the previous year 2021 saw the Scarecrow Trail return to Duffield.
2022
Building on a successful return in 2021 the Scarecrow Trail returned in 2022.
2023
The Scarecrow Trail had another successful year, and for the first time the trail was extended to include the neighboring village of Hazelwood.
Festival Team
Jonathan Leach – Festival Founder and Co-Lead
Lisa Leach – Festival Co-Lead
Adam Thompson – Digital Media Lead