Fylde Kite Festival

Saturday 1st & Sunday 2nd June 2002

Location: The Beach, Lytham St Annes, nr Blackpool, Lancashire
Organised by: Phil Womack / Flying Circus

A few kite fliers and kite buggiers arrived on Friday afternoon to enjoy the good weather and large expanse of beach before the official start of the kite festival on the beach at Lytham St Annes. Winds were light but enough to buggy with!

Saturday dawned with glorious sunshine on what turned out to be one of the hottest days of the year so far. The wind was good all day - between 10-15mph for most of the day, blowing up the beach which allowed the buggies to tack up to the sea and back.

It has to be emphasised that the beach at Lytham is huge! The tide recedes about a mile out, and the beach itself is a good few miles long. We spent the whole of Saturday morning buggying up and down the beach before taking a break (and some photographs). The beach was strewn with razor shells, which meant there was a constant background noise of cracking shells when you were buggying!

Towards the end of the day the wind changed direction 180 degrees and the wind speed dropped, leaving Evolver to walk backwards towards the sea during one of their flying routines in the main arena! Just after they had finished, the wind picked back up again and the North East Kite Fliers put on a display of many of the European Air Gallery Edo kites.

There were many other fantastic kites and displays that took place, which were unable to photograph because we were out enjoying ourselves! The weather was perfect for a beach kite festival, and very well organised by Flying Circus. There was plenty for children to do - including learning juggling and circus skills, making a kite, and entering the sandcastle competition. Finally, a hotpot dinner and auction took place on Saturday night, and everyone just chilled out, in and around the marquee.

The weather for Sunday was not good however, with thunder, lightning and heavy rain. Carl Robertshaw put up his Delta Serpent arch and a few other kites braved the skies, including the seahorse, diver and Dave Holt's Thunderbird 2. An altitude sprint took place in the pouring rain, but by then most people were taking refuge in the marquee. Still, we enjoyed ourselves flying Revolution kites before the rain really got heavy and we decided to leave.

Busy beach views
A Peter Lynn octopus takes to the air alongside an inflatable penguin - the size of the people in the picture gives you an idea just how large the penguin is, never mind the octopus!
Inflatable dog	Rolf Zimmerman starfish kite	Roy Reed launches a large Carl Robertshaw Airform
Evolver flying their routine		Flying Circus marquee in the sunshine
Some of the North East Kite Fliers' European Air Gallery collection		'Snails'
Landscape and Claudio Capelli self-portrait		'Pegasus'
'Falling Rain'	Angel	European Air Gallery flying alongside an Airform
Peter Lynn Trilobyte in the sunlight	Malcolm Goodman flying an unusual leaf kite
Malcolm Goodman's dragon kite head and body	A very different 'dragon' kite	Children's sandcastle making competition

Links:

Official Fylde Kite Festival website

Flying Circus

British Buggy Club