Polperro Music & Arts Festival

We will be playing a 1hr 30min set of all your favourite high energy folk, Irish songs and tunes, as well as shanties on the main stage at 6.30pm Saturday 22nd June.

The Polperro Festival is a community and arts event that takes place in Polperro in late June every year. The event was started in 1995 by local people and businesses, and like other events at this time of year is partly based on the Cornish traditions of the past.

The Polperro Festival celebrates with a midsummer bonfire on the date of the Solstice, often 21st June. Solstice is the time when the sun spends longest in the sky and marks the start of the return of darkness. At one time, Solstice bonfires were lit across Europe.

During Polperro Festival, the organisers secretly choose a “Mock Mayor”. This person then leads the festival, making a speech in the centre of the village accompanied by the “Merry Men”: his supporters dressed in fisherman’s smocks. The Mock Mayor is dressed in clothes making fun of real mayors or other leaders. After the speech, the Mock Mayor tours the local pubs, handing out fake money and eventually being thrown into the sea at around 4pm.