"The Yellow's on the Broom" 10th. International Music and Arts Festival
 Sat 2nd. & Sun 3rd. May 2009, 7.30pm, at Sillyflatt Barn, Inverbervie
Tel: (01569) 750756
www.yellowsonthebroom.ifb.co.uk
yellows@ifb.co.uk

The Festival - General Information

The Yellow’s on the Broom Team are the organisers of a two-day festival of music, art and craft-forms held annually since 2000 on the May Day Holiday weekend in a barn on a working farm near Inverbervie. International and Scottish performers present a locally-unparalleled variety of music genres and in the periods before and after the event offer tuition workshops and performances in schools and other venues. 

The next event is on May 2nd. & 3rd. 2009. 

The festival started in 2000 and has run at the same venue at Sillyflatt Farm, Inverbervie, for the last eight years. There is always an an eclectic and wide range of musical genres on offer with the emphasis on quality and unusual acts that represent an international culture.
 

The festivals over the last eight years have included African World Music, Liberian Bassa Beat, Cuban/Chilean Salsa/Merengue, UK and American Jazz, Nu-Folk, Traditional Folk, Cajun/Zydeco, Bluegrass, Rythm&Blues, Pop-Rock, Classical Harp, Didgeridoo&Djembe, Taiko Drumming, African Drumming, Techno, Scottish Electro-Folk and Scottish Cabaret Folk.
 

This year there are international artistes from Stavanger, Norway, and Berlin and Heidelberg, Germany offering the finest in Texas Country/Rockabilly, Celtic Overtoned Opera and Blues who will be tayloring their shows for the festival’s appreciative audience.
 

The musical mix on offer always has a range of moods and influences to entice, to animate and to offer something for everyone. The range of ages and nationalities attending brings people together and ensures an enjoyable Spring evening at a superb rural venue celebrating the arrival of May.

The principle of the festival - and the reason it came into existence - is to promote an awareness of international community and expression of ideas by offering music, dance and theatricality of quality and inspiration. 

In 20098 the event will be in its tenth year and the intention is to focus the existing support by promoting the hinterland area known as "The Mearns" to a wider catchment. This will be conducted via the existing media contacts and website and especially through the extension of promotional opportunities via a professionally-made feature film. A pilot film of the 2006 event has been completed and is available on DVD; a film of the 2007 event is work in progress. The intention is to seek support from businesses and interested parties which have already, or will in future, directly or indirectly benefit from the festival and those which have the potential to be enhanced or promoted by this event.  

The event is financed from income from ticket sales - any surplus is carried over to the following year’s event. The dedication of the teams of volunteers and the generosity of the farm owner, in providing the venue and other facilities, have ensured that each year this self -financing festival continues. Occasional financial assistance via the Aberdeenshire Arts Development Officer has been gratefully received from Kincardine & Deeside Arts Forum and Kincardine and Mearns Local Community Planning Group. 

The festival organisers have so far promoted exchanges between SW Germany and NE Scotland with like-minded organisations and have now arranged for performers and an artist from the Stavanger catchment of Norway to visit, with the assistance of the Norwegian Consulate General and the Norwegian Consul in Aberdeen.  

The team interacts directly with around thirty voluntary helpers, stewards, drivers, catering and stall holders and indirectly with many more in Aberdeenshire and abroad. Since 2006 we have worked in partnership with Benholm Mill Project, The Kirk of Benholm and Lathallan School on workshop hosting and a film premier evening. In 2005 we co-ordinated with Aberdeenshire Education & Leisure Department on organizing tuition workshops.  

The style of the festival is deliberately aimed to appeal to all ages from 8 to 80 years with, for example, children’s features early in the evening and peripheral fringe performances in primary schools. Since 2005 tuition and skills workshops are also a feature. Voluntary help with the two-week preparation of the venue includes all ages and capabilities enjoying the benefit of experiencing and promoting international friendship.