The 2025 St Ives September Festival will burst into life at noon on Saturday, with Falmouth Marine Band making their debut in the street entertainment programme.
Members of Falmouth Marine Band with the festival banner
“We’re hugely looking forward to providing a rousing start to the September Festival on our first ever appearance,” said band leader Tim Vinnicombe.
“Our band was formed in 1989, so it’s only taken us 36 years to get there! We’re aiming to make up for lost time by creating lots of noise, so come along and enjoy it as much as we will.”
They will be joined during the Aspects-sponsored afternoon by an array of performers, including Piano Bike Girl Chloe Marie Aston, appearing in St Ives for the first time as she aims to pedal her talents in every town in Britain.
Her journey has already taken her to 200 locations. “It’s been really fun, it’s an adventure,” said Chloe, from Ilfracombe. “Someone told me there are about 1,200 towns and cities in the UK, so there’s still a way to go.”
Her father, Lee, who made the tricycle on which the piano is mounted, is chauffeuring her around Britain, with a caravan, after selling his home to pursue the quest.
September Festival stewards, easily identifiable in their t-shirts
Mayor of St Ives, Johnnie Wells, is excited about the September Festival, which will feature more than 300 events between 13th and 27th September.
He said: “Autumn is one of my favourite times of year, with 15 days of music, art, poetry, and people coming together in a very St Ives way. I’m really looking forward to seeing what the 2025 festival brings to town.”
Events sold out early include Fascinating Aida’s fundraising show for Kidz R Us at St Ives Theatre, folk star Miranda Sykes, and Cornwall comedian Johnny Cowling at St Ives Theatre, along with both Virginia Woolf garden tours at Talland House, and the over-60s Aerial Circus workshop with Sky High Arts at the Island Centre.
There are two late additions to the line-up: a talk on the St Ives Mariners Memorial project, with Tom Leaper, at Penwith Gallery on 16th September 16, and St Ives Town Band’s Sketch To The Sound Of Swing in the Band Room on 18th September.
For the latest updates, and for tickets to events, visit stivesseptemberfestival.co.uk/.
