Charlbury Riverside Festival 2011

Saturday 18th to Sunday 19th June 2011
Charlbury, Oxfordshire, OX7 3QG, England MAP
FREE

Last updated: Tue 17th May 2011

The Charlbury Riverside Festival is now in its sixteenth year, and the organisers claim that it's the largest FREE festival of its type in Oxfordshire. Charlbury returns on Saturday 18th and Sunday 19th June.

Line-up

Saturday

Main stage: The Rock of Travolta, Charly Coombes & The New Breed, Borderville, The Dirty Royals, The Anydays, The Black Hats, Mundane Sands, Yellow Fever.
Second Stage: 3rd Degree LeBurn, Stuart Turner & The Flat Earth Society, Komrad, Samual Zasada, Tamara & The Martyrs, Desert Storm, Welcome to Peepworld, STEM, The Reaper.

Sunday

Main Stage The Fenns, Les Clochards, Death of HiFi, Every Hippie's Dream, The Prohibition Smokers Club, Steam Roller, Manacles of Acid, TBC.
Second Stage: Headline act TBC, Headington Hillbillies, 1000 Mile Highway, Alphabet Backwards, Gunning For Tamar, Empty Vessels, Les Clochards, Sonny Black, and Grey Children.

Expect music to start on Saturday at 2pm going through until about 10pm. Events on Sunday begin at noon running until 8pm. Previous years have had crowds of around five thousand people coming to enjoy these two days of music set on an 'island' in the River Evenlode.

On site

As well as two stages, a smorgasbord of food stalls on site with a pig roast and stalls selling burgers and baguettes, hot dogs, noodles, curries and crepes, and 45 portaloos! But despite the work involved and the cost of putting on an event of this size, the festival is still run entirely by volunteers and still free for all to enter. It's a truly family-friendly festival.

New this year

This year's fancy dress theme is Treasure Island. In the Kids' Zone, Andy Hill and Zarah Tehani of BG records are running DJ, lyric-writing and art workshops based around Hip Hop music; and younger festival goers can join in hands-on music sessions with the Salt Box Music Company. For the first time there's a dedicated family disco marquee With a bouncy castle, face painting, willow weaving and clay modelling. Festival goers of all ages can be part of a major community art installation sponsored by Time For Change a national campaign to challenge ingrained attitudes to mental health. This ambitious project to create a forest of life-size trees covered in buttons is already taking shape at The Mill day centre in Oxford with individuals and groups across Oxfordshire donating buttons, and local children and visitors to the centre attaching them to chickenwire trees - if you have any spare buttons at home, bring them along to the Mill Field and add them to a button tree. To find out more about the project or to donate buttons visit buttonforest.co.uk

Restrictions

Like all festivals, festival goers cannot bring bottles and cans into the arena, but the two bars and other refreshment stalls will be selling drinks at very reasonable prices. No camping at the festival, see website for information on nearby camp sites and hotels. No dogs other than assistance dogs.

How to get there

Entrance to the Festival site is down Mill Lane, virtually opposite Charlbury railway station. The station is on the London Paddington to Hereford and Worcester line, 15 minutes from Oxford. On the Saturday there are buses from Oxford, Woodstock, Witney, Chipping Norton and Banbury to the centre of Charlbury, five minutes walk from the Festival.

Accommodation

This event does not offer camping. The area has local hotels and B&Bs and there is the Cotswold View Caravan and Camping Park on the outskirts of Charlbury.