The Boggart Festival was an amazing day! We sold 482 free tickets through Eventbrite but estimate that twice this amount of people attended. It was a great success at getting the message out about the importance of the mosslands; a narrative that all artists weaved into their work on the day. The story was based around the myth of Boggarts, a mythical Bog creature, and the fact that they are at risk as are the flora and fauna because the mosslands are disappearing. The Boggarts came to Risley Moss to meet up as it has a huge restored Mossland. The Carbon Landscape message was hidden within every activity to further elaborate on this in an engaging and exciting way.
On 11th May 2019, the day kicked off to an exciting start with Professor Jigget from Yan Tan Tethera and the ‘Boggart‘ puppets opening the event and the trail. The trail was a mile long walk with Boggart sculptures dotted along. At least 12 sculptures and boggart masks marked the trail made by local schools and an artist in the weeks running up to the event. ‘Live boggarts’ from the theatre company Frolicked pulled the whole narrative together helping get our message out.
Boggart trail leaflets were given out at the start of the trail. These included a puzzle that could only be solved by walking the trail and finding all the Boggarts. Completing this puzzle automatically entered the attendees into a prize draw to win cinema tickets provided by Odeon Cinema. The puzzle revealed the magic word for the wands to restore the mosslands, leading to the next activity, the wand making workshop. Alongside that, Professor Jigget ran a spell making workshop and storytelling.
Other activities included Willow weaving, making cotton grass boggart food for an arts installation and clay craft with boggart baby making. Lots of local people attended, including many who had no idea that this great site was on their doorstep. A great day was had by all.
