Sidmouth Sea Fest takes place on Saturday, May 18 – a free celebration of the town’s marine environment and heritage at The Ham.

It’s 10 years since the Sidmouth Coastal Community Hub (SCCH) held the first Sea Fest, comprising a few stalls and run by directors Kay Davies, Mary Bagwell, Louise Cole and Coco Hodgkinson, along with a small group of volunteers.

They were joined in 2022 by mixed media artist and design creative Tara Greifenberg, whose artwork and social media campaigns have helped to raise the profile of the event. The female-led crew are still supported by many volunteers, family members and friends who share their skills and time before, during and after the event.

Planning, organising, fundraising for and curating a truly inclusive festival, while ensuring it remains a free community event, is never plain sailing. The pandemic, energy crisis and the cost-of-living crisis have placed increasing pressures on outdoor community events.

However, Sea Fest has grown and evolved over the years, becoming a key part of Sidmouth's summer events calendar.

Raising environmental awareness and embracing the challenges of climate change has always been at the core of Sea Fest. The organisers take a ‘show don’t tell’ invitational approach, aiming to inspire everyone to take positive action. Past themes have included Rethinking Plastics 2018, Celebrating Diversity Creatively 2019 and Kelp Our Oceans 2022.

Sea Fest was Sidmouth’s first single use plastics free festival and takes pride in recycling, reusing materials and using local suppliers to keep its carbon footprint low, the supply chain short and to support local businesses.

However, for environment-related reasons, Sea Fest will not be taking place next year. As part of South West Water's work to reduce sewage discharges it's building a new storm storage tank at The Ham, with work ongoing from September 2024 until July 2025.

Director Louise Cole said: “We are working with South West Water and welcome why we have been asked to find a new location for 2025. We all know the extent of the sewage discharge issues faced – in part why our theme is so important.

“Moving site is just too onerous in one year with the challenges a new venue would present, not just to us but to everyone who contributes to making it the community event it is.

“So Sea Fest as we know it will take a break in 2025; however we have a new community project to focus on – more news on that soon, and we are already planning a Sea Fest Fundraiser 2025 event to bring the joy but without the wholescale event being possible. We will then be back for the full event in May 2026!”

Artistic Director Coco Hodgkinson added: “Particularly in view of the disruption next year we hope everyone will join us on Saturday 18th from 10am to celebrate the incredible hard work of the community and children at our schools who all contribute. With a packed programme all day, community stalls will close at 5pm and the ever-popular Garaghty and Thom will be such a treat to entertain at 5.30pm to take us into the evening -  DJs and bands with reggae dance funk band Malavita taking us to a 10.30pm finish. We have so much local talent, Sea Fest is proud to produce this event and to be helping to make Sidmouth’s cultural offer vibrant.”

For a full list of the entertainment on offer, visit the Sea Fest Facebook page, and follow @sidseafest on Instagram to receive updates.

Food and drink will be available at The Prawn Cocktail Bar, Sidmouth Trawlers Fish and Chips, Pura Vida, Café Dish, Pizza Butlers, Sea, Sides and Tacos, Angel Chops Cakes, Vanillibean Ice-cream Tuk Tuk and The Bean Machine Café on the Ham.

Sea Fest is a town-wide celebration – Sidmouth businesses, shops, cafés and restaurants are encouraged to get into the Sea Fest spirit and dress their windows or put a special dish of the day on their menu to share the 'Seas The Day!' message creatively.

Sidmouth Coastal Community Hub is a not-for-profit community interest company whose mission is to run community projects that preserve and conserve the marine environment and promote the local fishing heritage, while embodying its ethos of collaboration and marine and environmental stewardship.

For the Sea Fest, the organisers run their own bar and sell organic cotton T-shirts, a raffle and The Friday Night Fundraiser event to help raise the costs of the event. Tickets for the fundraiser event on the 17th May are available here.

Past initiatives now part of the fabric of Sidmouth include The Fish Wall Mural, the Coral Reef Community Garden, films such as Working The Sea – the story of Sidmouth’s last fishing family with Stan Bagwell - still available to watch https://youtu.be/hydX8ojVJMg?si=5oni30gvftMZoQww and more recently a Sidmouth Wallspace public art gallery and partnership with Sidmouth School of Art and the Sidmouth Makes Art Project.

SCCH are very grateful to have the support of Sidmouth Town Council/Visit Sidmouth, South West Water, Potburys, Fords, Molyneux Financia, Sidmouth Hotels and Burts Snacks.

Donations and raffle prizes are very welcome – please contact info@sidmouthcoastalcommunityhub.org if you would like to support in this way.