I love festivals. Not just your 'get muddy and rock out' type but the 'all the fun of the fair' type too. This weekend Manchester International Festival held a specially created children's event for 3- to 11-year-olds called The Great Indoors. It was an ambitious, colourful, wildly creative and fun example of why children deserve the best quality entertainment too.
If you didn't happen to catch it, there are lots more children's festivals coming up over the summer holidays:
Manchester's Family Friendly Film Festival is now in it fourth year. There's a Bollywood themed day with films and dance, spooky night time events in some of Manchester's haunted venues and enchanted open air screenings.If you're craving a Glastonbury moment stop by the 28th Glastonbury Children's Festival for a world of performances and workshops.
The Bristol Harbour Children's Festivalincludes workshops, pirate performances and circus skills to keep everyone from toddlers to teens busy for a long weekend. There's a larger festival happening at the same time with an impressive line-up of music, dance, markets, circus performances and an eco-zone.
In Oxford the Towersey Village Children's Festival holds arts, crafts, music, mime, puppets and storytelling in store.
The Nottingham Children's Festival takes over the city for a full two weeks. You'll find everything from riverside musicians to a global picnic and family friendly cinema screenings, alongside workshops and the seemingly obligatory story telling and puppets (there's a theme developing!)
Finally, the Rose Theatre's Children's Festival in Kingston is running a month long celebration of some all time favourite children's stories including The Tiger Who Came To Tea, The Gruffalo and We're Going on a Bearhunt. They are also offering workshops particularly suitable for children ages 3 upwards.
If you know of more children's festivals add them in a comment below and keep the list growing.