Global Fusion Dead.
The Pestalozzi International Village Trust has announced the intention not to run Global Fusion, its annual festival of world music, crafts and storytelling, in 2006.
The event has grown from modest beginnings in 2001 to a significant event in the annual festival calendar; in June last year it attracted an audience of 6000 and there was every expectation that, were it to run in 2006, numbers would have increased again.
“As a charity we have relied hugely on volunteers and communal good-will to organise and manage the weekend but the scale of the event going forward would mean that the various administrative and organisational burdens would increase substantially. A change of personnel, and therefore expertise, within the Trust has presented us with the opportunity to begin to reconsider what resources would need to be properly dedicated to the event and it will not be possible to organise anything comparable for this coming summer.
However we are conscious that Global Fusion was never simply a festival – it had a significant outreach programme that involved local schools and other groups contributing to the weekend. And, at its broadest level, the event sought to promote not just Pestalozzi but also to celebrate both the influence and enrichment that cultures are able to bring to each other, in order to foster international understanding and co-operation and build a more sustainable and fairer world.
The Trust remains committed to promoting these ideals, as is evidenced by its new monthly events programme; on Sunday 19 March 2006 it will hold an afternoon Festival of Food and on Sunday 16 April 2006 an afternoon of Drumming, Music and Dance.”
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When the festival started it was tea and cakes on the lawn for locals. A small village fete re-named festival for the ethnicity factor, and not a lot more. Then Mandy Curtis became involved. Mandy worked at Pestalozzi in charge of PIDEC (Pestalozzi International Development Education Centre), and she had a dream.
The Global Fusion Festival ‘became’ something worthy; an event to be nurtured and grown. Year on year it was a huge amount of work, and initially was heavily supported by the Arts Council, but with Mandy’s efforts it grew and grew.
When Kamakura played the 2005 Festival Sly and Robbie were the headline. In 2004 it had been Bob Geldof. Both the acts and the crowds kept getting bigger, and the profit had started to roll.
So… Global Fusion has been killed off at Pestalozzi. Mandy Curtis left to start Thirty-Six Hours her own Festival management company, and presumably the responsibility of a major event proved just too much for the new management. Much better to bask in the safe warm glow of a village fete, and the chink of coin from the cake stall, rather than having months of hard work.
I find it sad, for charities need money and this years Festival would have started producing it in buckets. I’m hopeful Global Fusion will survive and be found a home elsewhere. After all, you’d have to be mad to kill a fledgling golden goose. Wouldn’t you?