Festivity Heads Indoors! Announcing The Festival Line Up For Sharpe’s Pottery Museum in November

After a brilliant tour around the county over the summer, Arts Derbyshire’s Festivity is returning for the winter season, bringing its vibrancy and fun indoors to escape the British weather.

We’re excited to announce the line-up for the Festivity weekend at Sharpe’s Pottery Museum in Swadlincote! A much-love venue in the heart of this South Derbyshire town, we will be transforming this community space with continued celebrations of Derbyshire talent.

There will be some familiar faces from the summer Festivity programme giving you a chance to catch artists you saw earlier in the year.

All this fun is being brought together on one fun day from 10am to 5pm on 22 November. Don’t miss out!

🎶 Live Music

Our featured artist is the amazing Paul Johnstone who entertained the crowds at Bolsover Castle in May, and who will be back at Sharpe’s Pottery at the other end of the county, and the other end of the season to entertain visitors!

🎤 Spoken Word

Curated by Derby Poetry Festival, our spoken word programme will feature a powerful mix of performance poetry and storytelling through verse which will be bold, moving and memorable.

📖 Storytelling

The ever-inspiring Adverse Camber will bring storytelling artists to the venue for more inspiring and heartfelt performances.

🖼️ Digital Exhibition

Step inside our digital gallery to experience work by 11 exceptional Derbyshire visual artists, including:

• Bernie Rutter & Vitor Azevedo
• Paul Johnstone
• Small Print
• Ray Gumbley
• Nikki Dennett
• Rebecca Morledge
• Stephanie Sian Coley
• John Bullock
• Helen Swift
• Mark Knight
• Alice Marshall (Film)

Also added to the digital exhibition is Eva Juusola, winner of the recent Derby Print Open 2025, who will be exhibiting her winning artwork Analogue vs Digital.

🎨 Workshops

We will also have a fabulous and interactive workshop programme at Sharpe’s Pottery Museum. We’re bringing back local theatre company Hubbub Theatre, who will be providing inclusive, playful creative workshops for all.

Stephen Munn, Director of Arts Derbyshire, said:
“We’ve had an amazing summer of Festivity, taking over spaces across the county to bring local creative talent to local people. We’re delighted to carry on into the autumn with a continuation of the festivities at Sharpe’s Pottery Museum.”

Becca King, Museum Manager at Sharpe’s Pottery Museum said:

“Here at Sharpe’s we love any opportunity to work with Arts Derbyshire. Our iconic Grade II listed Kiln Hovel and surrounding building provides an ideal space to celebrate Derbyshire Makers and Creatives in a fun and innovative way, so we’re really excited to have been selected as a venue for Festivity this November!“

Bring along your creative imaginations and your friends, and we’ll bring the traveling festival to the town of Swadlincote.

Entry is free and open to all!

Let the Festivity begin!