The first hybrid Royston Arts Festival has been a success - with organisers achieving their target of staging mostly live events.
The festival is organised by Creative Royston - the team has been unable to finalise attendance numbers yet, but chair Carl Filby said they are pleased with initial figures.
Carl told the Crow: "We were very pleased with the initial reported attendances at the events during the festival.
"Although understandably down on previous years, we achieved the target of staging a festival with mostly live events, while respecting social distancing, and despite all the COVID-related planning difficulties.
"We hope that next year, with a few more volunteers for the festival committee, we might be able to stage something like our festivals in the immediate pre-COVID years."
MusicFest also took place as part of the Creative Royston event - as did the Barkway Literary Festival.
Winners of the arts festival's creative writing competition have also been announced, all winning prize tokens for David’s Bookshop.
Rotarian David Blundell, an organiser and judge, said: “The standards of entries were really high once again. It was very encouraging that so many youngsters in the seven to 10 years age group took part.”
Carl added: “Thank you to all those who entered and congratulations to the prize winners. We would particularly like to thank Rotary and David’s Bookshop for their support. Together, they covered the cost of prizes amounting to £300.”
Three judges from the world of literature and journalism, selected the winners.
In the seven-10 years category Priscilla Tibenderana, nine and Nathan Tibenderana, seven, were joint winners and Freya Johnson, eight, was runner up.
The winner in the 11-14 years category was Genevieve Eaton-Banks, aged 13, and 18-year-old Elizabeth Eaton-Banks was the winner in the 15-18 category, with Jasmine Brett, 16, the runner up. Justine Blaydon won in the 19+ category.
Highly commended were Amelia Keen, Edward Scales, and Darcey Brown, all eight, and Imogen Clements, aged 11.
For more and to read the entries of those named, see www.creativeroyston.org.
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