The Feel Good Festival returns to Rochdale

2011 sees the Feel Good Festival return to Rochdale for a fourth consecutive year, offering a wealth of music, food, art, and fun times for all the family.
 
Taking place on Friday 2nd and Saturday 3rd September, the event will see Rochdale Town Centre, alongside venues in Middleton and Heywood, transformed into performance spaces, a celebrity kitchen, and more. Packed with all the roaming entertainment anyone needs to celebrate the end of summer in style, did we also mention that it’s free?
 
That means you can catch chart topping pop funksters The Fun Lovin’ Criminals, Manchester’s legendary man of words Badly Drawn Boy, winners of the 2010 Glastonbury Emerging Talent Contest Ellen & The Escapades, NME favourites Frankie & The Heartstrings, and rising stars Doyle & The Forefathers, for nothing. Better yet, that’s the tip of the iceberg with a further five stages hosting formidable live talent.
 
Elsewhere culinary delights will be served up thanks to a host of familiar foodies. Local all star and award winning chef Andrew Nutter delivers his typical quality by way of two demonstrations, though that’s not to say revered cakemaker Alison Seagrave, BBC Fusion’s Aazam Ahmad, and TV favourite Ainsley Harriot won’t be well worth catching when they arrive to showcase similarly delectable skills. And there will, of course, be samples available for the hungry.
 
Understandably then expectations are high, and the celebrations have already begun with summer long warm up events. June cookery classes in primary schools, and July’s Arts Feel Good Festival, with its combination of theatre, dance, drama and sculpture, bring the phrase ‘off to a flying start’ to mind.

And more highlights are to come, with Jim Cartwright’s acclaimed play, Two, at Middleton Arena (27th July – 5th August), and blues, soul, folk, and funk sensation Kirsty Almeida headlining Heywood Civic Centre (19th August), to name but two.
 
So whether it’s an appetite for the edible or audible that needs satisfaction Rochdale Feel Good Festival should ensure you can stave off the hunger for some time to afterwards. From fantastic performers, here showcased with the unique backdrop of the Gothic Town Hall, to menu maestros, street theatre, Target Golf, and the indisputably breathtaking Skylight Arts Circus, the first weekend of September looks set to be a true sensory explosion.