The summer season at Camden Market kicks off this Friday with a day-long festival that will cost you precisely nada – at least to get in, anyway.
And it looks a hell of a lot more impressive than previous years, as there are two stages of live entertainment, and for the first time, the event stretches all the way from the cobbled, pedestrian Stables market right down to the edge of the canalside.
For music fans, the live stage by the water has a line-up of ten fairly eclectic bands, including quirky Heavenly-signed trio Stealing Sheep, 80s-influenced Flyte, reggae six-piece By The Rivers and Kentish Town-based singer songwriter Frankie Forman. Meanwhile, over at the North Yard (just underneath the Proud Gallery) expect dancier acts including DJ nutters Cuban Brothers and the legendary Norman Jay, MBE.
What else? For more cerebral revellers there’s an afternoon of spoken word (2pm-6pm) hosted by the Roundhouse in the Yumchaa tea room in the West Yard, and comedy acts in hip specialist coffee house Lantana (Middle Yard).
Inevitably, it’s as much about the edibles and drinkables as the performances. So there’ll be all manner of world street food stalls, from Argentinian to Polish: we especially loved The Frenchie’s duck confit burger when we took holidaying relatives to the market last weekend.
And bars will be dotted around the whole site, serving a selection of small-batch craft beers, cocktails and ciders. It wouldn’t, of course, be a London festie without a gin garden, here located right by the Chalk Farm Road entrance to the Stables Market (look out for Camden gin maker Half Hitch on the edge of the West Yard too too).
All the usual interactive workshops and independent artisan shopping and designer-maker stalls will be open all day for shopaholics. And after parties kick off at around 10pm at Proud, The Cuban, Lockside Lounge, Gilgamesh and Lock 17, to name a few.
Let’s just hope the weather holds out too, eh?
