Battersea Festival and the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant

Battersea Festival and the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant (c) Battersea Festival (p) GoUK.com

What

Battersea Festival

When

Sunday 3 June 2012

Where

Battersea Park, London

The Fanfare

The free Battersea Festival offering music, dancing, design and dressing up through all the sixty years of the Queen’s reign will take place in the riverside Battersea Park on the day of the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant.

Kicking off at midday, on Sunday 3 June, and running through till 7pm, the Diamond Jubilee Festival will reflect design, music, fashion, art, film and food from the six decades of the Queen’s reign, and be co-curated by Hemingway Design, who produced the popular Vintage Festival at the South Bank Centre in the summer of 2011.

The park will be divided into zones including a tea dance, vintage hair and make-up, an alternative village fete, Village Green, outdoor cinema and “Diamond Geezer” pub.

There will even be a pixelated portrait of the Queen made out of angels cupcakes, alongside a gigantic cake stand that will hold over 1000 cakes for afternoon tea.

The pageant itself is described as one of the largest public events ever held in London.

The flotilla of 1000 boats will set off in the early afternoon, just after high water, and will be over seven miles long and, including mustering, dispersal and the Avenue of Sail, will include some 25 miles of Thames riverbank and pass under 14 bridges.

It will take 90 minutes to pass any given point.

There will also be 50 big screens along the route, broadcasting the event live.

Organisers are hoping for around 1million people to witness the event as it winds its way along the river.

The flotilla will include manpowered boats, tugs and working boats, fishing and cargo boats, Dunkirk Little Ships, armed forces vessels, lifeboats, launches, fireboats and passenger boats.

There will be boats from all over the UK, as well as some from Commonwealth countries including Canada, India and Australia.

Music barges will separate the ten sections of the flotilla, the first being a floating bell tower, with the chiming bells on the boat being answered by church bells along the route.

The barges will play famous works such as Handel’s Water Music, but also new commissions, and include a choir of singers from many different Commonwealth countries, as well as the Academy of Ancient Music and the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

At the head of the flotilla will be rowed and paddled boats, led by Gloriana, a hand-built, 88-foot rowbarge, with 18 oarsmen; the second section will include boats carrying the flags of the Commonwealth nations , then comes the Royal section including the flagship, the Royal Barge, the Spirit of Chartwell, on which the Queen will travel.

The route itself will be framed by two iconic bridges, the Albert Bridge and Tower Bridge, but the boats will gather upstream as far as Hammersmith, and disperse below Tower Bridge, as far as West India Dock, and organisers are encouraging people to decorate buildings along the route.

The Avenue of Sail will consist of tall ships, square riggers and other boats unable to negotiate the bridges, near Tower Bridge.

Overall, there is a budget of about £10m to mount the event, funded largely from the private sector and the event will be a launchpad for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Trust, ensuring a legacy from the event.

Details about how to attend the Battersea Festival will be made available soon.

Full details on the pageant including downloadable photographs are on the Latest News pages at www.thamesdiamondjubileepageant.org