OCTOBER 2024

The Committee is holding its first AGM under the Shipston Proms Music Festival 2025 banner at The George on the 2nd October at 7pm. If you would like to join in with this exciting
community driven event, please come along. There are a lot of different aspects to get involved with like booking performers, hiring venues, applying for licenses etc. as well as the
more physical jobs during the festival such as front of house, providing refreshments, selling raffle tickets and the big one, cleaning up afterwards! As the Committee is a small team,
each member is valued.

The Committee are still on the lookout for someone to handle the social media side of things so if you’re interested, do get in touch for more information.

The first exciting announcement for the Proms Music Festival is that the RPJ band, one of the best covers bands you are likely to see, are returning to headline the Final Night. Anybody who saw them play in the High Street in 2022 will not forget the showmanship and the sheer energy of Rick Parfitt junior and due to popular demand from Shipston, and the RPJ band themselves who absolutely loved the Shipston vibe, they are coming back to the main stage for what will be another memorable Last Night. Support acts are being lined up and will be announced over the next few months.

There will also be some Christmas concert fundraisers to look forward to as the Committee start to raise money towards next years Proms. For any updates and for more general information, please go to www.shipstonproms.org or see our Facebook page. 

Dates for next year are 14th June – 28th June 2025.

SEPTEMBER 2024

As the 27 th Proms is being quietly contemplated, now is the time to get in touch with your feedback for next year. The Committee has already booked the headline band for summer 2025 as they were in high demand and might have been lost to another festival.  Otherwise, there is plenty of room for your input and to make sure the Proms Committee get it right. 

The Committee want to build on the success of events like the Ibiza-on-Stour night but need the help of the younger audience to reach out. They would love to hear from someone who could help out throughout the year on social media and marketing.

They would also like to get together a team of people who can help with the clear up after the Final Night. That would be a huge help to the Committee who, by the end of the two weeks, would really appreciate the extra manpower!

We are tweaking the name slightly and we are now the Shipston Proms Music Festival, we hope that this opens up the reach and for people to understand a bit more of what we are out.

The Committee are delighted that next year will be another FORTNIGHT of music and the dates are 14th June – 28th June 2025, so get the dates in your diary!

The Proms will be holding Christmas events this year, so keep your eyes peeled for details of these.

The Proms look forward to hearing from you and contact details can be found on www.shipstonproms.org or on our Facebook page.

JULY 2024

‘Fight for the right to party’ screamed the lead singer from the Dropouts at the Launch Night of the Proms as dancers pumped their fists into the air to the energetic chords of the Beastie Boys cover in Townsend Hall.

Not that Shipston needs an excuse for a party, but there is always a great community buzz to the town when the Proms is on.

One of its enduring appeals is the eclectic mix of performers and music which can be accessed by festival goers who live in Shipston, almost on tap, and if the event is on in Shipston and you live in the town you have at the most a 15-minute walk to the venues. In Glastonbury you can walk up to an hour between some stages! Here in Shipston you can listen to an evening of classic show songs at Townsend Hall and then 10 minutes later you can be up at the Hub at an Ibizan rave.

We had some memorable events this year, the top one and probably the most anticipated, was 90’s Radio One DJ Dave Pearce arriving in his silver Merc and doing a club set at the Ibiza on Stour dance night at the Hub. It was a classic dance evening with a pulsating 700 plus audience, red, white and green glow sticks aloft, and lights strobing to the anthems of Faithless, Chemical brothers and many more.

The ethos of the Proms is to provide a platform for performers who would like to get their music out to a wider audience. At our ‘Shipston Introducing’ event at the Scout Hut it was 16yr old Grace Rushbrooke who won the soloist category after rushing over to take part after completing her grade 8 singing exam. Teenage local very much up and coming four-piece group Mad Thingz impressed and won the band category. Last year’s solo winner Honor Gerard Pickering returned to do a set at the end and showed us just how much she had blossomed into a confident and poised young singer.

There were some changes in the programme when illness caused some unforeseen moments. At the Coach and Horses, during the infamous pub trail, the Jolly Rogers were without their lead singer but budding vocalists in the audience were encouraged to fill in instead.

Our wonderful local opera singers succumbed to Covid but RSC soprano Alexandra Ferrari with tenor Dominic Bevan stepped in at Townsend Hall to provide us with another amazing opera night which included an encore by Dominic of the famous and powerful Nessun Dorma.

The Astwood Bank Operatic Society were also forced to cancel their show but fortunately the Cotswold Choir came in to fill the gap.

As usual, Final Night brought out Shipstonians in their hundreds to the Square. It was another legendary night thanks to the sheer quality of the acts including the two competition winners. Barney Porter of headline band ‘Wired’ attributed the amazing atmosphere to not only the great supportive spirit of Shipston residents but also to England who had just won the penalty shootout!

A massive thank you to everybody who gets involved in this huge community event, from the sponsors to the fundraisers, to the artists, to the venues and to the festival goers.

See you all in 2025!

A huge thank you to all who have donated so far on our GoFundMe page. So far, we have raised over £355.00 to help with our costs and please look on Shipston Proms GoFundMe page if you would like to contribute.

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