BOD is getting ready to set up shop as a trader at three music festivals this summer in Bungay, Ely and Wickham.  You will be able to try out and purchase the full range of our instruments and accessories, and John will be running a Beginner’s Bodhrán workshop at Ely as well.

First up is the World Music Workshop Festival (formerly known as the Drum Camp) from the 5th to the 8th of July near Bungay on the Norfolk / Suffolk border.  This is “an amazing weekend of global music, singing, percussion and dance workshops, as well as meditative/ambient sessions.”  At Bungay the focus is on education, with a great range of music making workshops and some great performances too.

The following weekend, 13-15 July, you can find us on our home turf at the Ely Folk Festival.  John will be running his Beginner Bodhrán workshop on the Sunday morning at 10:30.  The workshop was a really popular event last summer, with 35 attendees. Ely is a fun, family-friendly folk and roots festival in a beautiful cathedral town on the Fens. If you are new to folk festivals, this is a really nice event, not too expensive or too big, to introduce yourself to the experience. Lots of wonderful performances all day, every day, with plenty of workshops and Morris dancing going on as well.

Then on to the Wickham Festival, 2nd to 5th August near Fareham, in Hampshire, a wonderful music and arts festival which is “rated by many as one of the safest, most relaxed and family-friendly festivals in the UK”. They have a wonderful and eclectic line up of music and we are really pleased to have a trading stall at this renowned festival.

Preparations well under way

The full range of drums and accessories will be available for you to try out and purchase.  We are topping up our inventory of BODdrums, with more 14″ and 16″ shells due back from the spinners any day now, and we are going to have a couple drums powder coated in new colours, as an alternative to our usual matte black.  This is always an option via custom order, but we thought we would showcase some of the alternatives with this opportunity to set up shop.  Of course we will have supplies of beaters and sound bars, carrying cases, all of it.

Most important – we have been working on prototypes of several new percussion instruments, and hope to have good final prototypes for you to play with, and maybe even one of our new products ready to buy at the festivals.  Keep an eye on our Facebook page and our Blog for news as those products are confirmed ready for trial!

John set up our new marquee, a spacious 3 x 4.5 metres and did a sound check with tables and a display of drums in place.  We will be bringing in some carpets to help with the acoustics, as well as a new kettle and plenty of tea and coffee.

We look forward to meeting you this summer and hope you will enjoy the festivals and the chance to try our our percussion instruments.