The 2026 Big Little Arts Weekend was a three day event, based in the Dunn Village Hall and organised by the Little Arts Rushlake Green group. It brought together local artists, musicians, dancers and poets – enabling all their incredible talents to be shared with an enthusiastic and appreciative series of audiences.
This was the programme:
Friday 4th September evening – Open Art Show preview.
– The Art Show was open to anyone to enter one or two works
– The first evening preview was free to attend, with everyone welcome
– There was also a presentation of the Little Arts Award to this year’s winner Isabel Sheppard
Saturday 5th September morning – Art Show continued.
– Another opportunity for anyone to browse the art and possibly make a purchase
Saturday 5th September evening – Big Little Gig
– An evening of live music of 11 slots, involving 22 local musicians in total
– Book-ended with sets by two local bands, this was an open-mic style evening
– Featuring series of solos and duos.
Sunday 6th September morning – Irish Dance Demo
– A dance demo by local young dancers from the championship level Ace Academy
Sunday 6th September morning and afternoon – Poetry day
– A morning poetry workshop run by local Poet Charlie Bell
– An afternoon ‘Poetry Circle’ where local poetry writers shared their creative work
To explore more detail about the individual events you can go to the pages dedicated to each of them. The following summary is designed to provide an insight into the event outcomes and the work that went into making them such a success.
Encouraging local people to attend
The Pre-publicity went well with numerous press releases thanks to tireless work by Paula Nicholson, splendid Newsletters created by Monica Adams-Acton, relentless facebook posts by all (including profiles of many of the musicians taking part), plenty of roadside posters, and between us we distributed nearly 800 of our A5 flyers featuring the programme of events and the Big Little Gig Line-up.
Open Art Show
The Open Art Show attracted a brilliant collection of artworks all of which were splendidly curated by Mark Austin. And the exhibition space looked very classy with the smart new boards (financed by grants from Wealden District Council and Warbleton Parish council) and with thanks to Mark, assisted by Sue Copp’s hardworking team. Everyone was impressed with the diversity of creativity represented, including paintings, drawings, prints and a range of 3D works from the sublime to the quirky. We even managed to achieve our long time ambition by including creative film for the first time. The Preview in particular was very well attended and it was great to see the young theatrical costume designer Isabel Sheppard’s acceptance of her Little Arts Award so well appreciated. And on Saturday morning, in a new family-focused initiative, children could be entertained by listening to storyteller Jordan Northfield in the second hall (under constant supervision), leaving parents free to have a relaxing browse of the artworks in the main hall.
Big Little Gig
With 51 tickets sold online in advance, and many more attending on the night, the Big Little Gig threatened to burst the Dunn Village Hall at its seams. All the musicians were amazing (too many to list here), and they handled the inevitably complicated changeovers like true pros. Particular credit should go to Ian Taylor from TaylorMade, for not only leading the TaylorMade band through a banging finale set but also acting as unpaid tech and audio-mixer to ensure an excellent quality of sound throughout. Huge thanks also to Andrew Nairne for setting up and operating the lighting (kindly provided by the Village Players) for the Big Little Gig (and the next-day’s Irish Dancing). Having stage lighting transformed these events and helped to make all those performing on stage look amazing.
Irish Dance Demo
Sunday Morning’s Irish Dance Demo was stunning. Well done to Portia Langley and her amazing Ace Academy dancers – many incredibly young and yet so self-assured. And well done to Drummond Watson for finding and booking the group – we got to include DANCE at last!
Poetry Sunday
The Sunday morning’s Poetry Workshop by Charlie Bell was much appreciated by those who attended and the Sunday afternoon Poetry Circle attracted more than a dozen local poets whose, often very personal, poems were hugely enjoyed by a very attentive audience of both poets and listeners. So, well done to Pam Edmonds for creating and organising a very memorable ‘Poetry Sunday’.
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Behind the scenes
The incredible cafe and bar teams did a splendid job in helping all our differing audiences have a great time – particular thanks to Sue, Drummond, Monica and Proctor Taylor and many more for keeping the drinks flowing well into the night at the Big Little Gig – and we had a real bar – with Jack Daniels & Coke! Very rock & roll. Credit also to Jonathan Austin for providing PA sound for the Art Preview and for volunteering time to assist in preparing the hall and the exterior bunting poles.
And finally it’s important to mention that the Big Little Arts Weekend could not have happened without several months and countless hours of planning and development work by all the members of the Little Arts Rushlake Green team, namely Monica Adams-Acton, Mark Austin, Sue Copp, Pam Edmonds, Nigel McKeeman, Paula Nicholson and Drummond Watson.
Little Arts sustainability
As with previous events, thanks in no small part to the combination of audience contributions, artist fees, and the fact that all the musicians and dancers provided their time for free, the event was able to cover its costs – positioning the Little Arts Rushlake Green group well for planning more events like this in the future.