Basingstoke Kite Festival
Saturday 5th & Sunday 6th June 2004
Location: Down
Grange Playing Fields, Basingstoke, Hampshire
Organised by: Alan Cosgrove / Loddon Valley Kite Flyers
This year the Basingstoke and Bedford kite festivals fell
on the same weekend and so we decided to attend Basingstoke for both days.
Saturday was a relatively low wind day with fewer members
of the public attending than in previous years due to other events taking
place that day. Sunday was busier with more sunshine and a stronger wind
coming from the SW rather than the NE.
This years festival was certainly more relaxed than previous
ones but as always there were plenty of traders on hand so that people
could buy kites, eat and also drink. Children were well catered for with
slides, bouncy castles and a kite making workshop. The sponsors of the
festival were also present and during the day they even joined in the
kite fighting when they ran around the arena with rokkaku kites emblazened
with their names and tried to cut all the other kites out of the sky.
International flyers included Janneke Groen (Holland) with
her collection of Sode kites, Heinrich Hohmann (Germany) with his artistic
kites and Zoone (France)
entertaining people with their strange creations. Andrew
Beattie and Kathleen flew their collection of giant inflatable kites
which dominated the skyline for miles around.
On Sunday Andy Savidge and the members of Fractured
Axel turned up, and along with Andy
Wardley, joined together in a trick and freestyle presentation in
the arena.
Also on Sunday Andy Wardley, Brian
Fattorini & Heinrich Hohmann provided an impromptu demonstration
of the new Benson quad line freestyle kite, the Airbow.
Members from the local Basingstoke power kite group took
to the skies and showed the power of their traction kites.
Nick James built an art installation in one corner of the
arena with bamboo poles, fabric offcuts and candles, which looked beautiful
on Saturday night once the sky had darkened. Then a 'night fly' took place
with Mark DeRoussier, one delta, a large amount of line, and lots of flashing
'mini-magnet' lights (not to mention beer).
Saturday night was a gently sociable affair which involved
a game of Boule with Ramlal Tien from Zoone, although the less said about
the final result the better.. :-)
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| Gecko |
Cendres |
Raymonds |
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| Rokkaku kites... |
Angels |
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| ...and Rokkaku flyers |
Furax |
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| Malcolm Van Rooyen of KiteShip
was present with a selection of spinnaker replacement traction kites |
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| Power kite demonstration |
Artistic kites |
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| Three Airbows |
Andy Wardley + Airbow |
Andy Savidge & Jason Winter |
Previous Festival Reports:
Basingstoke Kite Festival 2003
Report
Basingstoke Kite Festival 2002
Report
Basingstoke Kite Festival 2001
Report
Basingstoke Kite Festival 2000 Report
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