EVERYTHING from a cricket match to literary greats and from a cartoon club under duvets to live music under the stars, The Curious Arts Festival is a New Forest festival with an international reach.
The event, in July, will start with a cricket match between an Authors XI and the Pylewell Park team, which will be followed by 50 talks, events, art, films and music over one weekend in five different tents.
Johnny Flynn and the Sussex Wit will headline the music programme, which also includes Eaves and Bear’s Den in a lineup curated by Ben Lovett of Mumford & Sons fame.
Among the impressive line-up of writers already confirmed are Lady Antonia Fraser and Nathan Filer.
Clare Conville, one of the event’s curators, said: “We want this to be a bespoke experience for each and every one of our guests – whether they fancy a Jabberwocky hunt, donkey rides, nude life drawing in the woods or a spooky story.”
With everything from the unusual to the original, the Curious Arts Festival will feature a breakfast news club, bibliotherapy, garden walks, tea parties, magic, a host of New Forest foods and a caravan of knowledge. A launch for the festival took place yesterday at Pylewell Park, near Lymington, the ancestral home of The Hon David and Melanie Roper- Curzon, where the festival will take place between July 18 and 20.
The event could attract up to 3,000 visitors, including half that number as weekend campers and glampers.
Tickets: curiousartsfestival.com
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