Several favourite Festival features are already confirmed with St Ives performance poet Bob Devereux – one of the Festival “originals” - bringing his traditional lunchtime poetry and music sessions back to Norway Square after Covid restrictions meant they were unable to be held last year for the first time in the Festival’s history. Bob will also be hosting two Big Frug nights at St Ives Arts Club where chairman Stephen Litherland has a near full fortnight of evening entertainment already booked in.

Also booked is the Festival opening night return of madcap duo John Otway and Wild Willy Barrett to St Ives Theatre – more than 40 years after they first appeared on The Old Grey Whistle Test.

Former Festival chairman Dave Brotherton is organising a 'St Ives Entertains' fund-raiser at The Guildhall for the St Ives Community Land Trust on Friday, September 17.

Festival secretary Susan Thomas is taking over the running of this year’s Open Studios programme which sees many artists around the town inviting Festival-goers into their studios, some of them not normally open to the public.

St Ives Rotary Club have confirmed they will be holding their popular charity sale of paintings, where the keenest buyers queue overnight to spot and snap up bargain donations from well-known artists who have only signed them on the back, on the middle Sunday of the Festival.

The decision to push back this year’s St Ives Food and Drink Festival on Porthminster beach until September 17 to 19 - the middle weekend of the September Festival – means that the two events will run alongside each other for the first time.

“After all the difficulties and delays we hope it will all make for a fantastic festival fortnight in St Ives,” is the message from the September Festival.

Despite all this, our small team is determined there will be a St Ives September Festival in 2021. Please follow St Ives September Festival Facebook for all the latest developments.