Scunthorpe International Folk Festival

Squeezing in between the rather better known Woodstock and Isle of Wight festivals of August 1969, this smaller scale affair offers, at least, a wider variety of music culture, and includes folk dance – filmed outside Scunthorpe Civic Centre. Although this is only a brief taster, mainly of the Turkish performers, the Kodachrome colour does justice to the wonderful national costumes; filmed by the maverick Leeds filmmaker Alan Sidi in his own idiosyncratic Sidiscope.

Alan Sidi was the inspirational force behind many of the films of Leeds Mercury Movie Makers, but this is among his own collection of over a hundred films. This festival took place on the weekend of23/24 of August, sandwiched between Woodstock, from August 15 to 18, and the 1969 Isle of Wight Festival, held on 29–31 August 1969. The groups performing having probably come from the more established Billingham International Folklore Festival which took place the week before this (begun in 1965 and still going). This latter included the Tine Rozanc Folk Dance Group Ljubljana, from Slovenia; the Roque Nublo Folklore Ensemble from Las Palmas; and the Turk Folklore Kulubu University Folklore Club from Istanbul.