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Ryde Arts Festival 2006
Ryde Development Trust's nine-day "arts-for-all" event encouraged groups
of promoters, performers, poets, photographers, musicians, artists, schools,
community 
groups
and art experts to join together to produce an extraordinary blend of
creative skills and knowledge.
The town's Victorian architecture provided the ideal backdrop to the full and varied programme of events, which ran from July 7th to the 15th. The long list of participants included many superb examples of home-grown talent, along with community arts and internationally acclaimed artists. Activities took place at venues throughout Ryde, both indoors and out.
Team Spirit
With its predominant source of funding coming from the 
Government's
Single Regeneration Budget, The Ryde Arts Festival was first established
in 2001 as a fundamental strand to the Ryde Regeneration Strategy. The
festival has grown throughout the past five years to become the largest
mixed arts event on the Island.
Led by Ryde Development Trust but working together; local artists, promoters
and businesses alike all helped to put together and deliver the ambitious
nine-day programme which promoted talent as well as presenting challenging
community arts projects, alongside internationally acclaimed artists.
Making an Impression
Irrespective of its reasonably short lifespan, the Arts Festival has
helped to enhance 
the
cultural profile of Ryde. It is estimated that more than 40,000 people
either participate in, or are audience to the arts festival each year.
To add to this, almost every young person in Ryde has had some involvement
in the festival either through schools, clubs, community centres or family
learning groups.
Adults too have been encouraged back into learning and entering the spirit
of community by offering their services as volunteers, plus valuable links
have been forged amongst students from The University of Portsmouth and
as far a-field as Italy and Romania.
Ryde, or Rio? 
One of the main highlights of the weekend programme was the spectacular Arts Festival Parade, which this year marked the start of Ryde Arts Festival. The parade, which included entries from all of the mainstream schools in Ryde as well as several other participants, has gone from strength to strength each year under the guidance of carnival arts development workshops and courses, coupled with the growing talents and unrelenting enthusiasm of everyone involved.
The
vibrant display of costumes all adhering to the 2006 theme "Let's Celebrate"
set-off on Saturday 8th July from Dover Park Primary School and followed
a route down through the High Street and Union Street to the seafront
where on-lookers were able to enjoy plenty more activities, including
a visiting French market and live open air music.
Thousands of spectators lined the streets to watch the procession; many
of them amazed by the quality of the carnival entrants and the many months
of hard work and effort that had been put into designing and creating
such a vibrant display of colour and energy.
To become witness to the Island's first costumed parade to kick-start
the Summer of 2006 carnival season please pay a visit to our online photo
gallery.
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