SINCE my last column, I am pleased to report our 2024 promotional flyer has been launched, writes Dave Stokes - publicity director of Bridgwater Carnival.

The eye-catching leaflets have proved both effective and popular in the past with promoting our carnival far and wide, and this is the twentieth successive year they have been kindly sponsored by J D Wetherspoons (The Carnival Inn).

As part of our ongoing sustainability commitment and due to the ever-increasing cost of marketing, we have gone digital again, and our 2024 leaflet is now available from our official website – www.bridgwatercarnival.org.uk.

As always, any help you could give us with spreading the word about our carnival would be really appreciated, and just downloading the flyer from our website and sharing it on social media with family and friends would help enormously.

Since our carnival returned following Covid, we have significantly reduced our leaflet print run from 40,000 to 5,000, so for those who still prefer hard copies to hand out, we do have some in the Carnival Centre which you are welcome to pick up and distribute.

With just under six months until the curtain goes up on the opening night, it’s that time of the year when we are on the lookout for performers to be front of curtain acts at the 2024 Bridgwater Carnival Concerts.

The concerts take place between September 30 and October 12, and we are inviting entertainers to apply for our auditions which are on May 21.

The front of curtain acts entertain the audience in-between the performances by the carnival clubs and dance troupes, and play an essential part in making our carnival concerts so very popular.

If you, or somebody you know, has a talent and can entertain a live audience for five minutes, please express an interest and apply to audition.

For more information on how to do this, visit our official website (www.bridgwatercarnival.org.uk), or contact Anne Middleton via email enquiries@bridgwatercarnival.org.uk.

For the seventeenth successive year, these auditions are being kindly sponsored by Anderson and Wall. Incidentally, tickets for this year’s carnival concerts go on sale on Wednesday, May 1, and more information about how to purchase tickets will be coming out over the next couple of weeks.

And finally, talking about the stage and entertainment, I must take this opportunity to pay tribute and applaud all of those carnivalites who were involved in the recent Old Folks Show at Bridgwater Town Hall.

I know many people who watched, including my Dad, and everyone I have spoken with thoroughly enjoyed the show. A big well done to all involved.


Until the next time…