Lowdown Creates Festival Hoedown

Lowdown Creates Festival Hoedown

Lowestoft's culture zine, Lowdown, took a version of itself to FolkEast (August 17 – 20), and produced three editions in three days, plus a super-fast late-late Final, complete with a World Cup report!

Lowdown is a zine project by Paperworks. It's print. It's published monthly and provides collated information on art, live music, film, drama and workshops taking place in the town. The free 12 page A5 zine distributes up to 750 copies via venues and independent retailers. It is a self-funded and puts community at its heart.

At FolkEast, Hugh Davies of Paperworks, supported by John Ellerby and Maria Demierre, printed and distributed the first FolkEast edition on Friday morning. 

Radio Suffolk's Wayne Bavin described Lowdown's appeal as 'You're like a real community paper'.

On Thursday, John and Hugh had gathered information about stalls and people, and, via the medium of Lowdown postcards, comments and reviews of Thursday night.

With a high-volume acoustic bellowed message, John grabbed the attention of the 500 plus people waiting for the most excellent John Ward set, and started the Lowdown mission on its way. 'We passed amongst the crowd like gods, handing out postcards and pencils. 'The response was amazing', remarked John, perhaps over-egging it a bit.

Every day, with forays into the festival hinterland and a steady stream of visitors to Lowdown's HQ – a gazebo – the team captured festival-goers' thoughts, reactions and reviews. By the Saturday, so much had been generated that Hugh Davies had a hard time editing down previously written material so that there was enough space. “It was fantastic” said Hugh. “People really liked the process, and they loved the fact that next day their words would be in print”.

FolkEast is one of, if not the, premier folk festivals in Britain. Though its stars come from around the world, it is all about being local. Vendors are local, beer is local, many artists are local. There were a LOT of different Morris teams. It's family. It's friendly. It's green.

The first FolkEast was at Somerleyton in 2012, but its home is now the beautiful Glemham Hall grounds.

The latest edition of Lowdown - November - is already on the streets, and if you can't find a print edition – go here.