Saturday 27th September 2025 at 12 PM - 6 PM

12:00   Festival Opening – Community poets raising the curtain with light & hope

12:15   Alice Gretton – Lyrical, heartfelt poetry

12:30   Henry Madd (Stone St. Mary CofE Primary) – Young voices of imagination

13:30   Tilly Pantlin – Uplifting live music

14:00   Sven Stears (Dartford Science & Tech College) – Bold, inspiring poetry

15:00   Cecilia Knapp – Award-winning poet of truth and tenderness

15:30   Anna Pancaldi – Internationally acclaimed singer-songwriter, soaring vocals & soul-stirring songs

16:20   Jemma Burgess – Festival Artistic Director performing fearless words of hope

16:30   Headliner: Lemn Sissay one of the worlds most celebrated poets

17:30   Book Signing - Book Partners: Waterstones 

 Take a deep breath… and step into a space designed for stillness, movement, and connection.

• Flow through yoga – whether it’s your very first time or part of your daily practice
• Find balance with guided meditation 
• Connect body, mind, and spirit in the present moment
• Nurture a healthy mind and rediscover your inner light

This space is free to join – just bring yourself, an open heart, and curiosity. Come as you are, leave feeling lighter.

13:30 - 14:30 Yoga Xtend | eXhale, eXtend, eXperience 

15:00 - 15: 30 Meditation with Yoga Xtend

Emoto - Matic 

Emoto-matic is a hilarious new show, with music, clowning and audience participation. Audiences watch a live demonstration of how to extract and bottle unwanted emotions, from a team of haphazard scientists. Exploring themes of feelings and how important it is to express yourself.  

12:00 - 12:30 | 13:30 - 14:00 | 15:30 - 16:00  

12:30 - 13:10 | 13:45 - 14:25 | 15:00 - 15:45  - Create a mini-‘zine’

‘Zines’ are often small and homemade, collecting a set of words/images to share ideas, experiences and perspectives into a few folded pages.

Using a range of materials and resources, start creating a min-zine (that can be finished at home) to explore, create, and share ideas about ‘hope’.

Using folded paper and a range of resources, design, make and take home a creative visual 'zine' that expresses the role of hope in our experiences of being human. These sessions are suitable for ages 5+ (with an adult).

Please note the art workshops have limited space please arrive at 12 PM and put your names down. 

Installations Running Most of the Day: What does Hope Mean?  and Weaving Strands of Hope. 

What does ‘Hope’ mean?

‘Hope’ can be present in many aspects of our lives - as a ‘thing’, a description of an experience, and/or expressed through an ‘action’. Across communities and cultures, perhaps something that we share as a humanity is seeking to live a life well-lived. 

We will be exploring words, concepts, languages and images about ‘hope’ to create a personal token and/or add to a visual response share board about our experiences of hope and ‘being hopeful’.

Weaving Strands of Hope

What thoughts do we carry when living our complex lives as humans, and where does the concept and experience of ‘hope’ have a role? Whilst listening to and engaging with dialogue, weave your thought strands alongside and with others. 

During this session you will be working with a range of resources to create a small personal ‘token’ and/or add to our festival’s art installation, using a range of materials (wool, non-animal sourced yarn, alpaca fleece, wisteria vines).