BY DANIEL CULLEN
Uig Community Hall will play host to a brand new festival next month, with musicians and performers from Skye and beyond coming together for the first ever ‘BayFest’.
Taking place on Saturday 26th September, BayFest is a new festival of music and words that will be headlined by local act El Sartel – with the inaugural event set to showcase further talent from across north Skye and further afield.
The event has grown out of the ‘North End Jam sessions’ started last year, with a number of people from the community helping to bring the festival together under the guidance of the hall trustees and local development officer, Rohan Lightfoot.
The Free Press spoke to Rohan ahead of the event: “BayFest grew out of the North End Jam sessions that I started last year”, he said, “and we were all really inspired by the SEALL bluegrass gig that we had in the hall in June and we want to keep that momentum going.”
Rohan continued: “Obviously, Uig means bay, hence the name, but we want the event to have a bigger perspective on the talent that we bring in.”
The line-up will feature performers from across Skye alongside visiting talent, including Anne Martin and John Condron from the north end of the island, Douglas Hudson and James Adams from the south end, and Findlay Napier from off the island. El Sartel will headline the festival.”
“There’s a bunch of other super talented people throughout the day from midday until around 10pm,” said Rohan.
The day will get underway at midday with piping from Kiro Brendan at 12pm before moving into shorter and open mic performances. More experience acts will take to the stage from mid-afternoon. SEALL will be helping on the tech front.
“The sound and lighting is being provided by Seall, for which we’re eternally grateful, so it’ll be top quality”, Rohan confirmed.
With the full line-up now set, Rohan said there had already been an encouraging response to the artists announced for the first BayFest: “We’re all really excited, especially now that the line up is confirmed. We’ve already had a great response to the artists we’ve announced and I think people will love the mix of local talent, which is epic, as well as our headliners.”
“This is the first BayFest, but we hope it’ll catch on and run for a while. It’ll be great for everyone to be able to say they saw or played at the first festival.”
Rohan concluded: “Part of our goal is to bring the community together in and around the hall, so tickets will be free. We’ll have to limit the attendance at any time to the capacity of the hall, so we’d encourage people to get along early and support as much of the day as they can.”