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Bare Lit Festival

Bare Lit Festival gives authors and poets of colour the platform and visibility they deserve.

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Bare Lit Festival

Bare Lit Festival

Bare Lit Festival

Bare Lit Festival

Bare Lit Festival

Bare Lit Festival gives authors and poets of colour the platform and visibility they deserve.

Bare Lit Festival gives authors and poets of colour the platform and visibility they deserve.

Bare Lit Festival gives authors and poets of colour the platform and visibility they deserve.

Bare Lit Festival gives authors and poets of colour the platform and visibility they deserve.

Media Diversified
Media Diversified
Media Diversified
Media Diversified
1 Campaign |
London, United Kingdom
$9,815 USD $9,815 USD 291 backers
111% of $8,814 Flexible Goal Flexible Goal

Last year, the UK’s three largest literary festivals featured over 2000 authors.

Of those 2000+ authors, only 4% were from Black Caribbean, Black African, South Asian or East Asian backgrounds.

We’re aiming to change that.

February 2016 sees the debut of Bare Lit: a literary festival focused entirely on writers of colour.

Unlike other literary festivals which often confine non-white authors to one-off 'diversity' panels, Bare Lit Festival gives authors of colour the platform and visibility they deserve. 

We want to counteract the trend of equating literary merit with whiteness by highlighting the amazing variety of work currently being produced by BAME writers. That’s why we’ve put together an exciting programme of performances, panels and conversations -- such as ‘Second-Generation Poets in Exile’, ‘What Does Liberation in Literature Look Like?', (Re)writing Pasts and Futures' and much more. Find further information about the program on our events page here.

This we hope will be the first year of many.

But to make this happen, we need your help.

To cover the costs of paying guests, booking venues, promotion and festival administration, we need to raise £7000.

This will help us to provide a high-quality festival experience for attendees and affirm the importance of valuing writers of colour, both in the UK literary scene and as a whole.

In the perks section you'll see we're offering the "Complict No More" e-book:

“Complicit No More” is a collection of essays curated by Yasmin Gunaratnam. It tackles the crosscutting facets of complicity as they play out within our relationships to our bodies, each other, our communities, to media representations and to mobilisation.

 

Limited edition Media Diversified tote bags:

...and festival tickets. As well as giving your support, we hope you can join us for what promises to be a groundbreaking cultural event!


On Friday 26th February join us for our opening night launch party at the award winning Betsey Trotwood pub which will include live music from Peter Brathwaite, a poetry performance by Khairani Barokka and a DJ set by AKA Mama Junk. (Further Info)

On Saturday we have a full day of events at both the Betsey Trotwood and the Free Word Centre in Farringdon, London and on Sunday a full day of events at the Betsey Trotwood. We will be hosting a terrific line up of writers across a variety of genres -- including fiction, poetry, politics and sci-fi/fantasy -- with celebrated writers such as Leila Aboulela, Jane Yeh, Selina Nwulu, Zen Cho and more.

Tickets will also be available from the Free Word Centre.

Find us on twitter @BareLit

Website: www.barelitfestival.com


In 2015, we hosted a Literatures of Colour panel at the Stoke Newington Festival chaired by Chimene Suleyman and with panelists Sunny Singh, Courttia Newland, Kavita Bhanot (editor of ‘Too Asian, Not Asian Enough’), and Bidisha, discussing the experiences of writers of colour.


Bare Lit Festival is organised by the team behind Media Diversified, a young and growing non-profit organisation which seeks to cultivate and promote skilled writers of colour. Live since July 2013, the initiative is already diversifying the UK’s media landscape, providing important, challenging and new content which contributes to global as well as domestic discussion on issues of social justice, equality, gender, politics, economics and pop culture. In March 2015 Media Diversified launched its Experts Directory, a searchable resource for media organisations of all sizes to subscribe to.


OUR GUESTS

Below are some of the authors featured in the international line-up for Bare Lit Festival 2016.

We'll be adding more info in campaign updates as the festival approaches.

Xiaolu Guo is a novelist, essayist, screenwriter and film maker. She was born in south-eastern China in 1973 and studied Film at Beijiing Film Academy and the UK National Film & TV School.

Her novel in English translation, Village of Stone (2004), was shortlisted for the 2005 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the 2006 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. It was followed by her first novel written in English, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers (2007), which tells the story of Z, a Chinese student‘s encounters in London and her inner journey of self-discovery. It was shortlisted for the 2007 Orange Prize for Fiction.

In April 2013, she was named one of the 'Best of Young British Novelists' by Granta Magazine.

Khairani Barokka is an Indonesian writer, poet, artist, and disability and arts (self-)advocate in London. Among her honors, she was an NYU Tisch Departmental Fellow for her Masters, Emerging Writers Festival’s (AUS) Inaugural International Writer-In-Residence, and Indonesia’s first Writer-In-Residence at Vermont Studio Center. Okka is the writer/performer/producer of, among others, a deaf-accessible, solo spoken word/art show, “Eve and Mary Are Having Coffee”. It premiered at Edinburgh Fringe 2014 as Indonesia’s only representative, with a grant from HIVOS. She was recognized in 2014 by UNFPA as one of Indonesia’s “Inspirational Young Leaders Driving Social Change” for “raising awareness of disability through inclusive arts”, and has been awarded six residencies, with a seventh upcoming. Published internationally in anthologies and journals, Okka has presented work extensively, in nine countries, is co-editor of forthcoming "HEAT", an anthology of Southeast Asian urban writing (Buku Fixi Publishing, 2016), the author of forthcoming poetry-art book "Indigenous Species" (Tilted Axis Press, 2016), and a PhD-by-practice candidate at Goldsmiths, as an LPDP Scholar. 

Dean Atta is a poet and educator, with a BA Philosophy and English from the University of Sussex and an MA Writer/Teacher from Goldsmiths College, University of London. He is a member of Keats House Poets Forum and Malika’s Poetry Kitchen. He is also an Associate Artists with Mouthy Poets and New Writing South. He has been commissioned to write poems for Keats House Museum, National Portrait Gallery, Tate Britain and Tate Modern. His debut poetry collection I Am Nobody's Nigger was published in 2013 by The Westbourne Press. He lives in London and works internationally. 

Malika Booker is a writer, spoken word and multidisciplinary artist. She has appeared world-wide both independently and with the British Council. She was one of the touring poets with Bittersweet in 1999/2000 and since has featured in the spoken word project, Modern Love, and in Kin at the Barbican in 2004 . Her book, Breadfruit, was published in 2007.

She was commissioned to co-produce a poetry film to commemorate the Royal Festival Hall's 50th Birthday Celebrations in Spring 2001. Her first musical play, Catwalk, commissioned by NITRO, ran at the Tricycle Theatre in June 2001 and had a successful UK tour.

Malika Booker also jointly runs 'Malika's Kitchen', a writers' collective based in London and Chicago. Her latest play, Unplanned, opened in Spring 2007, with a run at Battersea Arts Centre. Her book, Breadfruit, was also published in 2007. Her latest poetry collection is Pepper Seed, published by Peepal Tree Press in 2013.


Zen Cho was born and raised in Malaysia. She is the author of Crawford Award-winning short story collection Spirits Abroad, and editor of anthology Cyberpunk: Malaysia, both published by Buku Fixi. She has also been nominated for the Campbell Award for Best New Writer and the Pushcart Prize, and honour-listed for the Carl Brandon Society Awards, for her short fiction. Her debut novel, Sorcerer to the Crown, is the first in a historical fantasy trilogy published by Ace/Roc Books (US) and Pan Macmillan (UK). She lives in London with her partner and practises law in her copious free time.

Sunny Singh, was born in Varanasi, India, and brought up in various Indian cantonment towns, Islamabad, Pakistan and New York City, USA. She studied at Brandeis University (USA), Jawaharlal Nehru University (India), and University of Barcelona (Spain).

Her debut novel, Nani’s Book Of Suicides, published in 2000, was described as a “first novel of rare scope and power.” The Spanish translation of the novel won the inaugural Mar de Letras prize in 2003. Her second book, a work of non-fiction titled Single In The City: The Independent Woman’s Handbook (2001), was a first-of-its-kind exploration of single women in contemporary India and described as “witty and insightful.” Her second novel, With Krishna’s Eyes (2006), has been commended for its “profound insight” and described as “memorable”. Her latest novel, Hotel Arcadia, is published by Quartet Books and available from bookshops and e-retailers across UK. Her short stories have been published by prestigious international literary journals including The Drawbridge and World Literature Today.

Her creative nonfiction and academic writing has been published across the world in key journals and anthologies. She also writes for newspapers and magazines, in Spanish and English, across the globe.



Tendai Huchu’s first novel, The Hairdresser of Harare, was released in 2010 to critical acclaim, and has been translated into German, French, Italian and Spanish. His short fiction in multiple genres and nonfiction have appeared in The Manchester Review, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Gutter, Interzone, AfroSF, Wasafiri, Warscapes, The Africa Report and elsewhere. In 2013 he received a Hawthornden Fellowship and a Sacatar Fellowship. He was shortlisted for the 2014 Caine Prize. His new novel is The Maestro, The Magistrate & The Mathematician.

Leila Aboulela is a Sudanese-born writer whose work, written in English, has received critical acclaim and a high profile for its distinctive exploration of identity, migration and Islamic spirituality. Highlighting the challenges facing Muslims in Europe and “telling the stories of flawed complex characters who struggle to make choices using Muslim logic”, Aboulela’s work explores significant political issues. Her personal faith and the move in her mid-twenties from Sudan to Scotland are a major influence on her work. Literary influences include Arab authors Tayeb Salih and Naguib Mahfouz as well as Ahdaf Soueif, Jean Rhys, Anita Desai and Doris Lessing. The Scottish literary landscape and writers such as Alan Spence and Robin Jenkins have also been influential. Leila Aboulela’s works have been included in cultural educational programs supported by the British Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities in the US.

Robin Yassin-Kassab is the author of the novel The Road from Damascus.

He has lived and worked in London, France, Pakistan, Turkey, Syria, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Oman and now lives in Scotland.

He is co-author with Leila al-Shami of the forthcoming book on the Syrian revolution and war, Burning Country. He has lived and worked in London, France, Pakistan, Turkey, Syria, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Oman and now lives in Scotland.

His journalism on Syria has appeared at the Guardian, the National, al-Jazeera, Foreign Policy and elsewhere.

He is a co-editor and regular contributor to PULSE, recently listed by Le Monde Diplomatique as one of its five favourite websites.


Selina Nwulu is a writer, poet and researcher for a think tank.

She has written for a number of outlets such as The Guardian, Red Pepper, the Free Word Centre and Sable litmag.

Her work has been published in a variety of magazines and anthologies including collections by the RSA, Lunar Poetry, and Emma Press. She has performed at a number of festivals including Glastonbury, Edinburgh Fringe and Fiery Tongues Festival in Holland. She has previously toured nationally with Apples and Snakes, representing London as part of the ‘Public Address II tour’

Her work often touches on social and environmental justice as well as identity, nostalgia and belonging. 

Her first chapbook collection, The Secrets I Let Slip, published by Burning Eye Books is out now. She is currently Young Poet Laureate for London 2015/6.


Jane Yeh is an American poet who has lived in England for over a decade. Born in New Jersey, she was educated at Harvard University, the University of Iowa—where she took an MFA at the prestigious writers’ program—and at Manchester Metropolitan University. She has taught at a number of universities in the UK, including Oxford Brookes University, and is now a Senior Researcher in Creative Writing at Kingston University.

She has published two collections with Carcanet: Marabou (2005), which was nominated for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, the Whitbread Book Award and the Jerwood Aldeburgh First Collection Prize, and The Ninjas (2012). She has received many other awards and fellowships for her work, including a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, an Academy of American Poets Prize, and a residency at Yaddo, and was a judge for the 2013 National Poetry Competition. She has also written on a number of subjects, from fashion to sport, for publications including The Village Voice and The Times Literary Supplement.


London born author and speaker Tosin Coker is proclaimed as the UK’s first black sci-fi author.  Within less than three months of her powerful début 'The Mouth of Babes' hitting the bookshelves, Tosin had attracted the attention of esteemed producer and director, Menelik Shabazz.

Calling upon her own life experiences as an inheritor of the Sickle Cell blood disorder, Tosin inspires by way of example, enthusing that "the only limitations are those set by the boundaries of the mind".

Haris Durrani is a writer of fiction, memoir, and academic essays. His debut, Technologies of the Self, received the Driftless Novella Prize and is forthcoming from Brain Mill Press.  He is an M.Phil. candidate in History and Philosophy of Science at University of Cambridge and holds a B.S. in Applied Physics from Columbia University, where he co-founded The Muslim Protagonist Symposium.


Anthony Anaxagorou is an award winning poet, prose writer, playwright, performer and educator. Since becoming the first young poet to win the London Mayor’s Poetry Slam in 2002, he has continued to be an inspiring and important voice in spoken word, publishing eight volumes of poetry, a spoken word EP and a book of short stories. His collection ‘The Blink That Killed The Eye’ was published by Jacaranda Books in 2014 and he has since won the Groucho Maverick Award in 2015 consisting of a £10,000 prize, a lifetime membership to the club and a Gavin Turk sculpture. Anthony is also the founder and artistic director of Out-Spoken, an incredible event of poetry and live music in London, and he is the chief editor and founder of Out-Spoken Press.

Anthony has performed alongside artists such as Kate Tempest, Akala and Linton Kwesi Johnson, as well as making numerous appearances on BBC, and in 2013 his poem ‘Dialectics’ was interpreted and performed by Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas. Poems such as ‘I Am Not A Poet’, ‘If I Told You’ and ‘You’ have achieved wide acclaim for their honest and articulate interpretation of the truths of the world, delivering powerful messages illustrated with wondrous imagery to create a variety of meanings in a single line and a wealth of responses and reactions to his emotion-evoking and awe-inspiring words. 


Bwesigye Bwa Mwesigire is the co-founder of the Writivism pan-African literary initiative. He has written about literature, arts, culture and politics for a range of publications including The Guardian, This is Africa and Chimurenga. He has appeared at a range of literary events including Africa Writes, Storymoja, Ake and International Literature Showcase and is currently an MSc Fellow at the African Leadership Centre (ALC), King's College London. He has previously taught Law and Human Rights at Makerere, Uganda Christian and Martyrs universities.


JJ Bola, is a Kinshasa born, London raised writer, poet, educator and workshop facilitator. London and UK based, but also international; Paris, Brussels, Boston etc, most recently San Francisco and Oakland, where he won the Oakland Poetry Slam. JJ performs regularly at shows and festivals such as  Tongue Fu, Vocals & Verses, Chill Pill, The Round House, Ventnor Fringe, etc as well as Universities; SOAS, UCL, Oxford, Lincoln, University of Birmingham, Standford University and Merrit College in the Bay and other public institutions.

JJ Bola has published two books of poetry Elevate and Daughter of the Sun (ebook). His third, and latest, is his most comprehensive poetry collection WORD, which was launched to a sold out crowd, during Refugee Week on the 18th of June 2015 at Dalston Roof Park.  JJ Bola’s work is centred on a narrative of empowerment, humanisation, healing of trauma as well as discovery of self through art, literature and poetry. Creating the increasingingly popular addage, 'hype your writers like you do you rappers', he believes that the true purpose of poetry (art) is to expose the reality of this world and how to, most importantly, survive it.


Patrick Vernon OBE is a leading expert on African and Caribbean genealogy in the UK. Founder of Every Generation Media and 100 Great Black Britons. Patrick was selected by the Queen as Pioneer of the Nation for Cultural History in 2003. He has researched family history and Swahili culture in East Africa and Oman as a Clore Fellow and has advised the BBC, The National Archives, The National Trust, Royal Geographic Society, Victoria & Albert Museum and the British Council. Patrick write for The Voice, Guardian, and Mental Health Today. In 2012 he was awarded an OBE for his work tackling health inequalities for ethnic minority communities in Britain. Having worked for the Department of Health, NHS and the voluntary sector Patrick is an Associate Fellow at the Department of the History of Medicine at Warwick University, England. Patrick is a Patron of Santé a refugee and asylum seekers social enterprise based  in Camden.


Sareeta Domingo is a writer and editor from South East London. Her debut novel The Nearness of You will be published by Piatkus Books in May 2016.

She has been commissioned to write several short stories in collections of erotic fiction for Agent Provocateur, and was also commissioned to write a novella in the genre for Pavilion Books. She writes reviews of contemporary romance titles on her blog, The Palate Cleanser.


Radhika Swarup spent a nomadic childhood in India, Italy, Qatar, Pakistan, Romania and England, which gave her a keen sense for the dispossessed. She has written opinion pieces for Indian broadsheets and the Huffington Post as well as short stories for publications including the Edinburgh Review. Her new novel, Where the River Parts, will be published by Sandstone Press in February 2016.


A graduate of the Royal College of Music International Opera School and the Flanders Opera School, Ghent, British baritone Peter Brathwaite is distinguishing himself as an exciting young operatic talent. Recent engagements have included role and company debuts with Opera de Lyon, the Nederlandse Reisopera, Opera Holland Park, Glyndebourne, English Touring Opera and Edinburgh International Festival. On the concert platform, he has performed with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, HET Gelders Orkest, HET Symfonieorkest, the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Brathwaite is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

“Virile baritone, clean enunciation and sensitive acting”(The Telegraph)

“The indefatigable young baritone lights up the stage every time he appears”(WhatsOnStage)


Courttia Newland is the author of seven works of fiction including his debut, The Scholar. His latest novel, The Gospel According to Cane, was published in 2013 and has been optioned by Cowboy Films. He was nominated for the Impac Dublin Literary Award and The Frank O’ Conner award, as well as numerous others. His short stories have appeared in many anthologies and broadcast on Radio 4. He is currently a PhD candidate in creative writing.


Catherine Johnson has written many novels for young readers including the award winning Sawbones, and her most recent, Carnegie Medal nominated The Curious Tale of the Lady Caraboo. She's spent a life in stories, working at Centerprise in Dalston, as writer in residence in Holloway Prison as well as working on acclaimed British film Bullet Boy. She's written for BBC1 - Holby City - as well as with Simon Schama on Rough Crossings. This year sees the sequel to Sawbones in October and some exciting TV developments. She is also a mentor with MegaphoneWrite.


Peter Kalu is a novelist, playwright and poet and has previously won the BBC Playwrights Award, The Voice/Jamaica Information Service Marcus Garvey Scholarship Award and Contact/BBC Dangerous Comedy Prize. His YA books include, The Silent Striker and Being Me.


Rachel Shabi has written extensively on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Middle East. Her award-winning book, Not the Enemy: Israel's Jews from Arab Lands, was published in 2009. She received the International Media Awards Cutting Edge prize in 2013, the Anna Lindh Journalism Award for reporting across cultures in 2011, and was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize the same year.


Raymond Antrobus is a poet, performer and hearing aid user, born and bred in East London, Hackney. His poems have been published in magazines and literary journals such as The Rialto, Magma Poetry, Oxford Diaspora's Programme, British Council Literature, Shooter Literary Journal, The Missing Slate, Morning Star, Media Diversified and University Of Arkansas Press. Raymond has read and performed his poetry at festivals (Glastonbury, Latitude, Bestival etc) and universities (Oxford, Goldsmiths, Warwick etc. He has also read internationally (South Africa, Kenya, North America, Sweden, Italy, Germany, Switzerland etc)

Raymond is co-curator of popular London poetry events Chill Pill (Soho Theatre and The Albany) and Keats House Poets. Raymond’s work has appeared on BBC Radio 4, The Big Issue, The Guardian and at TedxEastEnd. Sky Arts and Ideas Tap listed Raymond in the top 20 promising young artists in the UK. His second collection  - Shapes & Disfigurements Of Raymond Antrobus - is published by Burning Eye Books. He is currently one of six poet Laureates for London.


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'Complicit No More' e-book

Currency Conversion $6 USD
£5 GBP
“Complicit No More” is a collection of essays curated by Yasmin Gunaratnam. It tackles the crosscutting facets of complicity as they play out within our relationships to our bodies, each other, our communities, to media representations and to mobilisation.
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March 2016
7 out of 60 of claimed

Mini donation

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Unconditional love from the team!
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Entry - 1 performance | Sunday

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£8 GBP
Entry into one poetry performance/conversation session at the Betsey Trotwood - Sunday. We will email you final details of performers in January for you to choose from.
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February 2016
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Entry - 1 performance | Sat

Currency Conversion $10 USD
£8 GBP
Entry into one poetry performance/conversation session at the Betsey Trotwood - Saturday. We will email you final details of the performers in January for you to choose from.
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February 2016
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Launch Party Ticket

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Entry to launch party at the Betsey Trotwood - Friday 26th February. With live Musicians & DJs TBA
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Media Diversified Tote Bag

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"Who Tells Your Story?" The Media Diversified Tote is made from 100% cotton and has strong handles with reinforced stitching. Dimensions: 40 cm h x 38.7 cm w (15.75″ h x 15.25″ w)
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1 x Day Pass | Sunday

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Entry into all the performances/conversation sessions at the Betsey Trotwood on Sunday
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Because you support the cause!

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Just because you know how much work it takes to organise a festival such as this and recognise that we need to cover all our costs whether the festival sells out (we hope it does) or not! Your name will be in the festival brochure with a BIG thank you.
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2 x Day Festival Pass

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Entry into all panels and performances/conversation sessions on Saturday and Sunday at both venues.
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February 2016
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Because you support the cause!

Currency Conversion $126 USD
£100 GBP
Just because you know how much work it takes to organise a festival such as this and recognise that we need to cover all our costs whether the festival sells out (we hope it does) or not! Your name will be in the festival brochure with a BIG thank you.
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February 2016
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'Complicit No More' e-book

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1 x Day Pass | Saturday

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1 x Day Pass | Saturday

Currency Conversion $44 USD
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February 2016
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2 x Day Festival Pass

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