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Fun Palaces are set to pop up in unusual spaces across Preston and beyond.
The annual celebration of culture sees local communities across the country come together to create free cultural experiences and activities.
This year marks the 10th anniversary of Fun Palaces, with events taking place on the weekend of Friday 4 to Sunday 6 October.
Events include the history of finger-painting in Longridge, friendship bracelet-making in Ingol, sword fighting in Preston city centre, children’s coding in Leyland, and hands on gardening experience in Kirkham.
Lancashire Archives is hosting a Fun Palace on Saturday 5 October between 11am and 3pm. Located in Bow Lane – just behind County Hall and a five-minute walk from the railway station – the Archives will have a wide variety of family-friendly activities on offer.
There will be ukulele taster sessions, historic swords, puppetry, Lego and Lancashire dialect, dance and poetry. Worldwise Samba Drummers will perform between 11am and 12pm.
Lancashire Adult Learning will be on site doing crafts including Gelli printing and making geometric hearts, pencil spinners and origami notebooks. Caribbean Carnival craft workshops will take place, with a mini procession happening at 2.45pm.
The National Football Museum’s Festival of Football will be there with performances of outdoor interactive theatre, Football Crazy, taking place at 12pm, 1pm, and 2pm. Attendees can test their goal scoring skills with Preston North End Community Education Trust’s inflatable goal, and there will be face painting available. It’ll also be the start of the final week of the National Football Museum’s Pride of the Pitch exhibition.
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Fun Palaces Director, Amie Taylor, said: “Over the last ten years, more than 45,000 people have organised around 2,600 fantastic events across the UK attended by over 850,000 people.
“It’s a moment for people to come together, and shout about the brilliance of their community and local area, creating free access to cultural participation, where people can connect, discover new and interesting creative opportunities and enjoy doing it all together – it’s a moment to say ‘culture belongs to all of us’.
“Each ‘Fun Palace’ is a community-led event that showcases the brilliance of those living in each local area. We’ve found that people are keen to share their skills – whether that’s junk modelling, dancing, sharing recipes or languages, DIY, singing or something else, all in the name of building community.”
More events are being organised daily, so check the Fun Palaces website for the latest of what’s on.
For more information about the Lancashire Archives Fun Palace, email archives@lancashire.gov.uk or visit Lancashire Archives What’s On.
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This story was made possible by you, our readers, and a host of organisations in the city, through our Crowdfund Lancashire appeal, which unlocked support from the Lancashire Culture and Sport Fund provided by Lancashire County Council. You can see all our coverage and, if you know of an arts project or event in the city we should be covering, you can submit it for our event listings and/or send details to contactus@blogpreston.co.uk for us to cover it as a story on the Blog.
