The annual Musicport Festival opening parade will convene at 5pm on Friday 20th October 2017, and all are welcome to join in with the festivities, not just ticket holders to the main event. The parade is curated by local artists Kate Rider and Liz Collier, who also led arts and crafts workshops in the run up to the event to create decorations. Look out for fish flags, banners and umbrella jellyfish, as well as a stunning sea serpent, made in collaboration with students from Fyling Hall School.
Join Hyde Park Brass, the ultimate party-starting brass band who formed in Leeds, and the young people of Runaway Samba, bringing Brazilian rhythms and world beats to the streets of Whitby, on the Open Top Bus tour around town from 5.15pm-5.50pm. When the bus has travelled back up Khyber Pass to its final destination at the Whalebones, the two bands will serenade both Musicporters and bystanders while the Allaboutwalkabout fire jugglers make sparks fly as the sun sets into the North Sea (Whitby is one of only two places on the east coast where the sun is known to both rise and set into the North Sea).
At 6.30pm, the parade will travel from the Whalebones into Whitby Pavilion where Hope & Social, the Yorkshire-based band blessed with bucketful’s of uplifting songs and an easy-going charisma that spills warmth from the stage at every gig, will be waiting to kick off the Main Stage performances at 7pm.
We repeat: Musicport Festival is offering all of this for free up until 8pm!
Tickets are selling fast, but if you wish to stay for the rest of the evening – or even for the rest of the weekend – a limited number of tickets will be available on the door.
Festival organiser Jim McLaughlin says “It’s our 18th year but I think we’ve got one of our most impressive line-ups this year that will appeal to all ages and interests and all within the very warm, inclusive and fun atmosphere that we create at Whitby Pavilion. The parade will undoubtedly get it all off to the perfect start.”