Involving the local Community : The Case of the Derby Jubilee Festival 2002

Abstract

This research was centred on a community cultural festival, which was staged in thecity of Derby (UK) in the summer of 2002, the year of HRH Queen Elizabeth II's golden jubilee celebrations. The festival was unique to the United Kingdom, as it tried to encapsulate three major celebrations under the name of ‘The Derby JubileeFestival’.The City of Derby was celebrating twenty-five years since the Queen granted city status to Derby in 1977, fifty years of HRH – Queen Elizabeth II on the throne in 1952, and seventy-five years since the cathedral in Derby was built in 1927 and the Church of England created the new Diocese of Derby, and with it ‘Cathedral Status’.There were another six notable celebrations, which were also significant to the city of Derby; twenty-fifth anniversary of the opening of the Derby assembly rooms (1977), The twenty-fifth CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) Beer Festival, two hundred years since the death of Erasmus Darwin (1731 - 1802) grandfather of Charles Darwin, the twenty-first anniversary of ‘Royal Crown’ Derby, and the tenth anniversaries of the Queen's Leisure centre (Opened by the HRH Queen Elizabeth II), and the Derby Heritage Centre. Although notable these were to play little or no part in the formulation of the Festivalas the stakeholders focussed on the 'big three'.The original concept of the Derby Jubilee Festival came from the Dean of Derby Cathedral who had the idea when he met representatives from twenty music andchoral groups in Derby who perform on a regular basis at the Cathedral. The idea was generated by the lack of an original festival in Derby; the last kind of official festival 111in Derby took place in 1996, and was predominantly concerned with the arts, and classical music. The main problem identified with this festival stemmed from the narrow focus of the events and it being considered elitist, and as a result a large number of the surrounding local community did not attend any of the events. It wasthen decided to widen the scope of the festival by incorporating the three key celebrations (25, 50, and 75) into one programme celebrating the diverse and burgeoning cultures in Derby.