A Mint New Free Festival For Southwark

Chris Lockie
By Chris Lockie Last edited 117 months ago
A Mint New Free Festival For Southwark

spok

Saturday 12 July should be an important day in everyone's calendar. Granted now that England have been shrugged out of the tournament there may be a smidgen less interest in the World Cup's third-place play-off, but many will still have that evening blocked out in their calendar to see who secures the all-important bronze medal position.

That does leave the afternoon a bit blank before the big game, but happily that's where the Mint Street Music Festival Comes in. An entirely free afternoon of music and fun in the heart of Southwark? We don't mind if we do.

Mint Street Music Festival is a free family-friendly community festival taking place at Mint Street Park, not far from Borough station. It calls itself the 'first annual' instalment of a festival that evidently aims for 'long running' status at some point, and hopes to encourage people of all ages to support local talent and participate in making music.

To that end there will be bands, singers and dancers and a mix of genres including classical, folk, latin, pop, punk and rap. It's intended as a show for all ages, with infants casting a careful eye over the Boppin’ Bunnies music sessions and the more mature nodding sagely to the Blackfriars Nightingales choir. You can find the full line-up at the festival website.

Londonist has also found a London-based band on the bill who it turns out are nothing short of magnificent. The band describe themselves thusly: "What do you get when you put a doctor, a professional eco-warrior, a train driver and an IT expert in a room together? A garage punk behemoth simply known as The Stabilisers." Here is their smashing track 100 Year Old Riff (trust us, it's superb).

This is very much a community festival, run by volunteers, with volunteer performers. The organisers need more volunteer stewards, first-aiders and fire wardens so please email mintstreetmusicfestival@gmail.com if you fancy helping out for a few hours. The event runs from midday to 5.30pm.

You can bring a picnic or grab snacks from stalls run by local businesses. You can also grab a bargain from the jumble sale stall, raising money for local community groups.

A brand new festival where this one is counts as mint in every sense of the word, so we urge you to reserve the afternoon ahead of Brazil 1 Netherlands 0.

Mint Street Music Festival takes place on 12 July, and you can get full details at the festival website.

Image of Spok (a Mint Street artwork) by ro_jo_sul via the Londonist Flickr pool.

Last Updated 27 June 2014