The April update from The Allen Valleys Folk Festival
Hello from the beautiful Allen Valleys. We hope you are well, that life is good and that you are enjoying the lovely weather.
Read on for news about our Banter ceilidh in June, the dates of our 2026 festival, our festival camping offer, the festival workshop and guided walks programme and our ‘in the spotlight’ feature.
Fancy a dance?
Described as ‘The future of Folk’, Banter take English traditional music to the next level with their iconic interpretations of classic songs and dance tunes.
Equally in demand as a dance band, Banter will treat us to a ceilidh at Allendale Village Hall on the evening of Thursday 18th June.
Doors open at 7:00pm, with dancing from 7:30pm to 9:30pm. Tickets are £12 and available online here or via Allendale Co-op. Those aged 14 and under are free but must be accompanied by an adult.
Dates for the 2026 Allen Valleys Folk Festival
The dates for this year’s Allen Valleys Folk Festival are Friday 25th September, Saturday 26th September and Sunday 27th September 2026.
Camping at The Allen Valleys Folk Festival
Camping can now be booked via the online link here.
The campsite is a short walk from the village centre at Bridge End, Allendale, Northumberland, NE47 9NE. The site is a mix of grass and hardstanding areas and has a toilet block. There is no power to the site. It is open from the Friday morning until the Monday morning over the festival weekend. Thanks to Wendy for letting us use Baynes Field again this year.
Our workshop and guided Walks Programme
We’ve got a great lineup of free workshops this year! You don’t need a festival ticket to join in, but you will need to book a spot since space is limited.
This year’s workshops include belting out some noisy folk songs with Paddy Villiers-Stewart, lino printing with Abi Baker, learning bodhrán basics with Steve Bentley, radical knitting with Penny Grennan, circle dancing with Allen Valley Circle Dancing, needle felting with Ann Shepherd and finding your sound with a singing in our natural voices workshop with Lindsay Joy.
Our booking system via eventbrite will go live next month.
We are just finishing up the details of our guided walks and hope to announce them next month.
In the spotlight
In the countdown to September’s festival, we’re spotlighting a different artist or band in every monthly newsletter
This month, it’s Sura Susso.
Sura was born in The Gambia, into a family of griots. Griots, referred to in Mandinka as Jali, are cultural figures in society across West Africa who carry the cultural knowledge and identity of the people.
His father, Mamudou Susso, is a renowned kora player in The Gambia, and his late mother, Fatou Bintu Cissokho, originally from the Casamance region of Senegal, was a formidable singer and percussionist. Sura moved to the UK at the age of seventeen, as the percussionist in his brother’s band, the Seckou Keita Quintet. He has worked with and performed alongside renown international musicians and his quest to promote the traditional music from his cultural roots in The Gambia and his fascination with experimenting new genres have led him to perform and record in a number of interesting cross-cultural settings.
Sura Susso at the Allen Valleys Folk Festival? We can’t wait!
Thanks and all the best,
Craig, Kate, Phillip, Nick, Oran, Tim, Sue, Peter, Glynn, Caitlin, Hollie, Bryony and Kerry
The Allen Valleys Folk Festival