A Superb Community Festival With A 34 Year History...

Hello, my name is Simon Shackleton and I volunteer for a not-for-profit organisation called Colne Blues Society. Colne Blues Society is the Artistic Director of the Great British Rhythm & Blues Festival which takes place in the lovely Lancashire mill town of Colne every year on the August Bank Holiday weekend. The festival has been in existence since 1990 with just 2 years lost to the covid pandemic. It is one of the largest and longest-running community-based music festivals in Europe, attracting nearly 30,000 visitors in 2023.

Every year a combination of ticket sales, fund-raising and sponsorship brings some of the the finest R&B talent in the UK and beyond to our main stages, while the substantial cost of the festival infrastructure is met by Colne Town Council.

Of course, costs only ever go up and we cannot assume that the local authority investment will always be there. The festival has already been under threat more than once because of rising costs and the only way to guarantee its future is to move increasingly towards a self-funded model.

Every penny raised by this campaign will be reinvested by Colne Blues Society into the promotion, programming and running of the Great British Rhythm & Blues Festival. It will help us to secure the long term future of this Colne Community institution, which has helped and inspired so many local musicians and which greatly benefits the local economy.

Moving forward Colne Blues Society hopes to continue to grow the festival and expand our work into local music educational programmes, community initiatives, and partnerships with other local organisations. With your help this much-loved event will thrive for another 34 years, whilst achieving some real benefit for the fantastic community that hosts it.

Thank you, and much love. Shack.