Bath is to stage a new multi-arts festival next May as it looks to position itself alongside Edinburgh and Cheltenham as a major UK centre for the arts.
Under the ambitious plan the city’s existing music and literature festivals will be merged with the new 10-day-long event also aiming to shake off Bath’s ‘elitist’ reputation by being more diverse. 
Unveiling the plans at an event in the Roman Baths on Wednesday, Bath Festivals chair John Cullum said the new festival would also be more inclusive and has adopted the catchphrase ‘Jump in’ to reflect its aim of attracting a wider and more varied audience.
Business sponsors already lined up to back The Bath Festival are Wessex Water and Bath-based advanced engineering group Rotork. The festival will also work closely with the Bath BID (Business Improvement District) to extend its reach.
Bath Festivals board member Ian Stockley said the new festival would be built on four pillars:
- higher visibility, including higher profile performers as such as the French-American jazz singer Madeleine Peyroux.
- wider engagement, including a more diverse roster or artists and performances, emerging talent,
- emerging talent, bringing in newer artists
- creative education, including involving the city’s young people.
Mr Cullum said: “We will celebrate the city of Bath with The Bath Festival over 10 days in May by creating a more visible arts festival building on Bath’s heritage of successful music and literature festivals.
“The festival will have an accessible and vibrant programme that embraces the wider performing arts, with broad appeal for our city, engaging the wider community and our valued visitors.
“The events will take place across the exciting range of social and community spaces that our city offers. Leading thinkers, writers and musicians will perform with the most gifted new talent emerging on the global stage.
“The festival will also provide a platform for the year-round extensive learning & participation programme that Bath Festivals run for over 6,000 young people, many with few opportunities to engage with the arts.”
He said the streets of Bath would “spring to life” during the festival with outdoor performances and experiences not seen anywhere else.
The festival hub will be Bath’s iconic Assembly Rooms, creating space to interact and engage with audiences in a completely new way. The festival will then spill out onto the streets, giving an opportunity to create a festival village with free activities and pop-up performances.
The area will be completely transformed during Party in the City, the opening night of the Festival, when there will be activity from Queen Square up to the Circus and the Assembly Rooms and along Brock Street.
“It’s Bath’s biggest night of free music and celebration of local performance with over 2,000 people taking to stages across the city and 20,000 in attendance and we want to develop it even further with an increase in the amount of outdoor activity,” added Mr Cullum.
VisitBath chief executive David James said: “This more visible flagship festival for the city is key to our ambitions to market the city nationally and internationally.”
Professor Christina Slade, Vice-Chancellor of Bath Spa University said “As a leading university in creativity, culture and enterprise, Bath Spa University is extremely proud to continue its role as the Creative Partner of Bath Festivals. Our staff and students are involved across the Festival programme and we are delighted to be playing a key role in delivering a new Festival for the city.”
Colin Skellett, CEO of Wessex Water and YTL group, said: “Wessex Water is delighted to be one of the key corporate partners in the new Bath Festival. We look forward to supporting the festival and in return extending the festival’s relevance to staff and customers.”
To give a taste of the more diverse nature of The Bath Festival, Wednesday’s event including a performance by Caleb Femi, the young person’s poet laureate for London.
The Bath Festival will run from May 19 to 28.
