Tonbridge Arts Festival officially launched....

I went along to the press launch of the Tonbridge Arts Festival yesterday evening at the Angel Centre. There was quite a turn out from many of the arts groups involved, from local businesses who may wish to become involved and indeed from the press. The Courier are the media partners so they were there doing a sort of roving report, asking those attending what they thought of the whole thing. There were artists with large and colourful fish on their heads, handing out small fish badges to everyone presumably to demonstate the theme of the festival: Fish, er, sorry.... the River. There was a wonderful professional magician called Jonathan Shotten doing close up magic, making things appear, disappear and reappear right in front of your eyes, which I always think is the best way to marvel at magic. A guitarist called Hamish, who won the recent schools Tonbridge Has Talent contest, performed his winning piece and other groups had us dressing up in costumes and taking photos of the "other you!" which was more fun than it might sound. And then there was Committee Chairman, Andy Brett's, presentation on where we were at with only six short months to go before it all kicks off on October 15th. He did a very competent, and mercifully short, stint during which we learned all about the work involved, the famous and ordinary people inolved, the progress made, the venues etc etc. He might as well have just said look at the web site which is exactly what you can do right now. It's still being built (by students at West Kent College) but is taking shape as is the whole event. I for one hope that this will be the first of very many annual arts festivals around October for many years to come and I'll be able to look back and say that, in my small way, I helped create that....