Crystal Palace Festival

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Crystal Palace Festival

We animate our community and to say everyone is creative – arts and culture can happen here, no matter what the barriers are. Charity no. 1178671

Our vision is of a fun and creative life for everyone in our community that supports well-being and brings everyone together. The Great North Wood Collective is the registered charity that delivers the Festival and other projects that support the well-being of young people in our community.

24/09/2025

The Festival popped in many different places, not just our parks, aided and abetted by many great volunteers, traders and partners. This selection from the 2019 Crystal Palace Festival includes a few of those - Bambino on Church Road and the lovely Crystal Palace Subway - as well as some of our lovely audience members as always.

Photos © Mike Jones Venus Grelin Pawel Gawronski

22/09/2025

In 2019 we began a project called Spirit of the Estate, funded by Arts Council England and local authorities, and this supported young people from local social housing estates to create their own work, street art, podcasts dance and spoken word, and share it locally both on their estates and at the South Facing Festival community evenings in 2021 and 2022. These young people rose to the challenge magnificently and were ably creatively mentored by Temujin Gill and Sunanda Biswas from Grounded Movement, A.Dee, a local street artist and Callum Patrick Hughes, a local writer, actor and theatre director. We are so proud of them and hope these experiences supported them in their future lives as they were great and should also be very proud of themselves.

Photos © Mike Jones Paul Grace

21/09/2025

2018 - too many great photos to choose from! Here's some highlights - Stereo MCs, Lola Young on our Youth Takeover Stage, My Beat Your Rhythm cross generational promenade performance, Whiskey Moon Face at Bambino, great crowd shots. Enjoy!

Photos © Paul Grace Marek Puc Catrin Arwel Mike Jones Pawel Gawronski

20/09/2025

2017 - Morcheeba and much much more! After outgrowing Westow Park despite loving it there, we had to move to the big park for our main event. The sun shone brightly and everyone grooved massively!

Photos © Alex Hewson Mike Jones Phil Fisk Katherine Pepper

19/09/2025

Crystal Palace Overground Festival 2015 - the year we outgrew Westow Park (victim of our own success) and then took a year off to plan our next move! More events outside of the park featured here - Anerley Town Hall, Andy and Liz's back garden, upstairs at Antenna with the late great Andrew Weatherall and more.

Photos © Paul Grace Mike Jones AJ Stonelock Ally Stonelock

18/09/2025

2014 Festival highlights - Westow Park, around the Triangle, Vintage up the Palace and Metamono at St John the Evangelist Church

Photos © Paul Grace Mike Jones Stonelock Photography

17/09/2025

Hot fun in the summertime - Crystal Palace Overground Festival 2013 highlights

Photos © Guy Milnes Joanna Duchesne Sener Arif-Salih

16/09/2025

Following our announcement yesterday that the Crystal Palace Festival is to close, here’s a few words from Co-Chair of Trustees Teresa Forgione:

“It’s the people that have made this such a special experience. Our flagship event The Crystal Palace Festival, and our other community projects, were only possible thanks to the energy of hundreds of volunteers. It has been a real privilege to be part of something so joyful; from filling Westow Park, rocking Crystal Palace Park with Morcheeba, bringing the festival to the Triangle and taking the festival online during Covid restrictions (my own personal highlight). We have celebrated the arts and celebrated them being for everyone in our little corner of London.

I want to thank everyone who has played a part in delivering our work over the last 13 or so years. Noreen, our former Director, was tireless and countless others have played a huge part. We appreciate everything you have all done.

As one of our trustees said when we met for the last time, “sometimes good things come to an end”. The legacy of our work continues in the events that now take place in the park and around the High Street. We’ll see you there!”

Photos from Crystal Palace Overground Festival 2012 © Guy Milnes

15/09/2025

Thanks for continuing to follow us while we’ve taken a break to think about the future.

We’re so proud of the contribution we’ve made to the Crystal Palace community and its extraordinary arts scene. Our work has always been from the community, for the community, and we have achieved so much.

We’ve explored all the options, but we’ve realised we can’t continue to offer the programmes and services at the heart of this charity. So unfortunately, the time has come for us to close.

It’s been an incredible journey since 2011, the year of the first Westow Park event, which took place the weekend after the London riots. We didn't know if after months of planning we would be able to go ahead! But the police said they thought it would be good for the community and so it proved! And we hope we’ve made people smile and given young people a good start in the arts.

Thank you for being there, for taking part, and for supporting us!

Over the coming week we will post some of our favourite photos from across the years starting with 2011.

From all of us at Crystal Palace Festival - thank you and more highlights to follow!

Photos of Crystal Palace Overground Festival 2011 © Guy Milnes Photography

Address

Greystoke House, 80-86 Westow Street
London
SE19

Website

http://crystalpalacefestival.org/

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