The annual Crystal Palace Overground Festival starts at 5 pm today (Wednesday, 10 August) at Westow House, Westow Hill in Crystal Palace with market stalls and entertainers and a fully interactive Rocky Horror Picture Show screening and fancy dress.

Now in its 5th year, the Crystal Palace Overground Festival is run over 4 days (10-13 August) to showcase the best local live music, poetry, theatre, comedy, film, food and fashion with the main festival hub and opening with well-known comedian Mark Steel at Westow Park on Saturday, 13 August at 11.45 am.

Festival highlights include arts, crafts, sports and kids’ activities, food and drink stalls and the best local bands and DJs on the Antenna music stage in Westow Park.

Around the Crystal Palace Triangle, local bars will host gigs and DJs, and there will be a ceramic workshop for children, a silent auction, painting and tailoring demonstrations, a steel band, an open air cinema and a Haynes Layne courtyard vintage market with DJs and acoustic sets.

The Crystal Palace Overground Festival promises something for everyone, and what’s more, it’s absolutely free!

When: Wednesday 10 – Saturday 13 August, 2011
Where: Westow Park & Crystal Palace Triangle, Crystal Palace, LONDON SE19 3AN
Getting there by tube/train/bus: Crystal Palace, Gypsy Hill www.tfl.gov.uk
For the full programme of events, visit the Crystal Palace Festival website

The Crystal Palace Overground Festival (10-13 August, 2011) is going from strength to strength with over 30 acts and 50 attractions planned for this year’s event!

Now in its 5th year, the Crystal Palace Overground Festival is expanding to Westow Park on Saturday, August 13 to host an outdoor live music stage, a food and crafts village, kids and sports activities and arts workshops, from 11am onwards.

The expansion is largely down to new Crystal Palace festival honcho Noreen Meehan from Gipsy Hill, SE London who joined the 11-strong organising team in April 2011 as lead festival organiser. ”I really couldn’t resist getting involved,” said Noreen. “Crystal Palace is such a vibrant town, full of unexpected surprises, quirky little shops, bars and restaurants, and the area is steeped in history and culture. The aim of our festival is to celebrate all that is great about Crystal Palace and its people.”

Festival founder Andy Stem said: “I love it when the festival comes to Crystal Palace. The town comes alive. Crystal Palace works especially well when folk promenade around the Triangle. Past festivals have enabled this to happen and I’m delighted to have been a part of it.”

Last year, the festival attracted 2,500 people to Crystal Palace but Noreen and her team of volunteers are anticipating an increase in number for the 2011 event.
The free 4-day festival will feature the best local live music, poetry, theatre, comedy, film, food and fashion around the Crystal Palace Triangle, with events running in the week leading up to and during the main event itself. Local bars will host gigs and DJs, and there will be a ceramic workshop for children, a silent auction, painting and tailoring demonstrations, an open air cinema and shopping, including vintage and antiques.

The festival costs £15,000 to run and relies on the sponsorship, goodwill and support of the local community, including in 2011, a grant from Croydon Voluntary Action, marketing support from London Overground, organisational support from the Crystal Palace Chamber of Commerce and sponsorship from local businesses.
Local people can support the festival by volunteering their time to the event. volunteer@crystalpalacefestival.org

For the full line up and/or to donate online, visit the crystal palace festival website

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Crystal Palace Festival organisers are thrilled to have secured sponsorship from a number of local businesses in the area, ensuring that this year’s festival will be one to remember. Neil Louth, the group managing director of Acorn, the main sponsor of the festival said:

“The Acorn Group are delighted to be the main sponsor of The Crystal Palace Festival. We already work closely with a number of schools and are regularly involved in helping to raise money for worthwhile causes in and around the local community. Acorn look forward to the festival being a great success whilst raising money for Friends of Westow Park who are working towards developing this local family park and improving the facilities for children”.

This year the festival will be held on Saturday 13 August with several smaller events running in the week leading up to the big day. The festival will include live music, poetry, theatre, comedy, film, food and fashion around the Crystal Palace Triangle with another festival hub in Westow Park.

The park will host arts workshops, sports and kids activities and entertainment for all the family. The festival is also supported by local solicitors Amphlett Lissimore. Frank Lissimore said, “We are delighted to be sponsors of the festival. We look forward to visitors to the festival being able to experience the cultural, musical and culinary delights of the area”.
The other platinum sponsor for the festival, local magazine, The Transmitter “is proud to bursting to be associated with an event that is at the heart of this vibrant, changing, infuriating and wonderful bit of London”.

Other businesses who have clambered on board so far include gold sponsors Printing Made Simple, Bambinos, Crystal Palace Antiques and Westow House, silver sponsors Willie Smart and Joanna’s and supporting sponsor Laurence Chandler Associates.

Noreen Meehan, lead festival organiser, is delighted with the support shown – “this wonderful investment and show of support for the festival mean that we can organise an amazing and inspiring event. This support will also lay the foundations for the Crystal Palace Festival to go from strength to strength in the future”.

The Crystal Palace Festival is launching a fundraising drive. Get a great perk in return for donations to the festival fund. The more money they raise the more fun you can have! Please donate anything you can afford and spread the word – even £5 will do! If they get 400 people donating £5 you can have a live music stage in Westow Park. For further information please visit the Crystal Palace Festival fundraising website

Future of the fifth Crystal Palace Festival will be secured thanks to new management team, sponsors and community support.

When Andy Stem, founder and organiser of the Crystal Palace Festival for the last four years decided to step down, the question was who would to take up the baton and build on his previous successes?

A New Crystal Palace Festival organiser

Thankfully a new festival organiser, Noreen Meehan, has been pulling together an impressive team of local volunteers with key skills in event management, entertainment, marketing, retail, the arts and community groups to take the festival onto another level, attracting sponsors and extending the festival footprint. Crystal Palace Festival organisers say:

“We want to build on the achievements and goodwill created over the last four years, delivering an event that reflects and promotes the values and aspirations of Crystal Palace, its people and businesses.

This is a wonderful opportunity for the people of Crystal Palace to come together for a great day out and thanks to London Overground’s media support, we hope to attract crowds from the surrounding areas to visit our thriving community.”

Crystal Place Festival 2011

This year the festival will be held on Saturday 13 August with several smaller events running in the week leading up to the big day. The festival will include live music, poetry, theatre, comedy, film, food and fashion around the Crystal Palace Triangle with another festival hub in Westow Park. The park will host arts workshops, sports and kids activities and entertainment for all the family. Festival organisers hope to attract over 3,000 people, up 50% on last year.

The festival is also supported by the Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood Chamber of Commerce, platinum sponsors Amphlett Lissimore and gold sponsors PMS Printers.

“We couldn’t run this festival without sponsorship, local business and community support so we are calling on anyone and everyone who may be able to help in some way to contact us and get involved” said Noreen Meehan, lead organiser.

For further information please go to the Crystal Palace Festival website.

Set up by Andy Bambino, who says of The Underground Festival, “We have waited a long time to see the tube arrive here, so we are throwing a party to celebrate”, The Crystal Palace Triangle Free Festivals have grown organically with more and more traders, pubs and restaurants joining in the fun. The event is underpinned by the brilliant selection of live music in the Triangle’s many pubs and the three interesting markets selling antiques/retro/food/craft/books and records. People are invited to set up street stalls selling home-made produce and bric-a-brac. There’s still much more to be announced, though expect many festive additions in the coming weeks! To get involved with the festival e mail andy.bambino@yahoo.co.uk or call 07956 323 164.