Snowdonia Arts Festival - Betws-y-Coed, North Wales

Following the very positive reaction to the Arts Festival’s in 2009 and 2010, this year’s Snowdonia Arts Festival will take place in the village of Betws-y-Coed – Gateway to Snowdonia – October 7th-9th 2011.

Betws-y-Coed has rich artistic history and was home to a number of artists in the nineteenth century. Artists came to paint the landscape of Snowdonia and the Conwy valley, their paintings then attracted the tourists curious about this landscape. The Conwy Valley is still home to many artists and attracts 794,000 visitors from far and wide.

The first Snowdonia Arts Festival (then known as the Betws-y-Coed Arts Festival) was held between 16th and 19th April 2009 in the village of Betws-y-Coed in the Conwy Valley in Snowdonia, North Wales.

Ever since the original artists' colony, Betws-y-Coed and the Conwy Valley have retained a strong connection with the arts. Many artists and craftsmen live and work in the area, and in the 165th year since David Cox’s first visit to Betws-y-Coed, the first festival was organised to celebrate the artistic heritage of the area and those artists currently working here.

Building on the 2009 Betws-y-Coed Arts Festival, the 2010 Snowdonia Arts Festival celebrated the strong connection this area has maintained with the arts ever since David Cox established Britain’s first artists colony here in 1844.

Already confirmed for this year are a number of North Wales artists putting on exhibitions or workshops – and in some cases both! Alongside the visual arts there are planned to be music, literature, and poetry events, a sculpture and ceramics exhibition, and a large Craft Marquee housing 30+ craft producers of the ‘Gwynedd and Clwyd Association of Craft workers’.

The festival weekend kicks off on Friday 7th October with the large Craft Marquee on Cae Llan, followed in the evening by the opening ceremony at the Alison Bradley Gallery.

On the Saturday and Sunday we will be joined by border Morris group ‘Clerical Error’, who will be performing around the village and on Cae Llan near the craft marquee. Also on Cae Llan for the whole weekend will be the festival workshops marquee and several other attractions.

One of the aims of the festival is to remind visitors of the rich artistic heritage of the Betws-y-Coed area, and on Sunday 9th October, a “Walk of Art” takes place. This consists of a Guided walk around the Artists’ Colony locations in and around the village.

This years festival will be closely followed by the Snowdonia Walking Festival a week later.