Cheltenham Paint Festival saved?
By Sarah Wood | 29th March 2023
It looks like this year's Cheltenham Paint Festival will go ahead, just days after it was announced it was cancelled.
The annual street art event has brought colour to the town, including to the town's less glamorous areas, like St Paul's and Hester's Way.
Tess Beck's St Paul's home was painted during the festival in 2020. She wrote on Facebook: "If it wasn't for Cheltenham Paint Festival, my home wouldn't be the thing of beauty that it is. Lucas Antics painted my house as part of the 2020 Cheltenham Paint Festival. It has appeared in The Times and The Sunday Times and The Telegraph, has been featured on Visit Cheltenham and won a Cheltenham Civic Society Civic Award in 2021. It remains a joy to come home to every day, and we still regularly have people stopping by to admire it and take photos."
It was announced on Instagram on Sunday (March 26) that this year's festival wouldn't be going ahead due to a lack of funding. Organiser Andy Davies wrote: "Despite lining up our biggest walls yet, having some incredible artists lined up... we are nowhere near our funding target and some of our usual sponsors have chosen other projects to support this year."
In response, Emma Bright, a fan of the festival, set up a fundraising page to raise the necessary £15,000 shortfall in funding. The campaign was shared widely on social media.
Late last night (March 28) it was announced that £15,000 had been raised in under two days, with a generous £10,000 donation from skiwear brand, Kowski.
Now organisers will be pulling out all the stops to ensure Cheltenham Paint Festival goes ahead later this year.
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