About

Following the huge success of the Cranbrook Town Music festival, CRANFEST 22, last September, we are pleased to say that the event will be back on this year.

The third annual Cranbrook Town Music Festival – CRANFEST 23 – will take place on the evening of Friday 8th and all day on Saturday 9th September. It will again be an entirely FREE event, continuing the community spirit of the last two years. Save the dates in your diary now!

As usual, we will be using a variety of venues in town to provide a veritable flood of live music covering a wide variety of genres so that there will be something for everyone to enjoy whatever your age or musical inclination. Do have a look at the festival programme and the artists pages, we are sure you will find something to tickle your fancy.

We have some terrific headliners this year; on Friday you can choose from The Milk Men, the finest rockin’ rhythm’n’blues band in the country, pure rocksteady ska from The Scorchers or some fine contemporary folk-rock from Russell Joslin & Sara McCaig. On Saturday we have Brave Rival, the South East’s rip-roaring rock and blues machine, who are making waves all around the country, the sweet soul sound of The Samuel Aston Band, fine Americana from The Tom Cole Band or The Mark Harrison Band who take elements of roots music, including folk, blues and gospel, to create something new that is very much their own genre. What a choice to have!

The High Street stage will be used only on the Saturday of the festival. We have artists pre-booked for late afternoon and the evening but, during the early part of the day, the stage will be open to anyone who would like to come along and play; essentially, a Buskers stage. If you would like to book a slot on the Buskers stage do get in touch with us.

This year, in addition to The George Hotel, The Vestry Hall and Larkins’ Alehouse we shall be using Cranbrook High Street as our fourth venue, to keep the festival more compact and to give us a bit more room. The Vestry Hall will also have café style seating, its own bar and light refreshments will be available throughout the day.

To help us fund the highest quality artists that we can muster this year we have set up a crowdfunding page on the website JustGiving and we invite you all to make a contribution. Every penny raised will go directly towards the cost of the event, there are no overheads or commissions to be paid, and your donations will help to ensure that this year’s festival is the biggest and best yet.

Feel free to donate any amount that you like, even £5.00 will be appreciated and will be well spent to support the running of the festival. We hope that, by making a donation, you will feel that you are a part of the festival community and will enjoy the atmosphere and entertainment even more.

Many thanks to our sponsors this year for making Cranfest 23 free and accessible to all:
The Berkeley Group, Angelfish, Tesco, The George Hotel, Larkins’ Alehouse

We look forward to welcoming you all to CRANFEST 23.

For more information please email us at info@cranfest.co.uk