Wray Crescent Festival: A Family Day of Fun

Wray Crescent Festival: A Family Day of Fun

Join us on Saturday, July 26, 12-5pm in Wray Crescent park.

Volunteers from the Friends of Wray Crescent working with Islington North’s park team are thrilled and proud to announce the third ever Love Our Park Wray Crescent Festival, a fabulous family day out with plenty to see and do. 

We have vast quantities of music, entertainment, and stalls. It’s all for free, though we do ask everyone please to donate generously to help meet festival costs. Anything we don’t spend on the event will support the work of The Friends of Wray Crescent across the rest of the year.

This page will be regularly updated in advance of the event.

Music and entertainment

Hosted by Tony and his brilliant team, please join us at the N19 stage, featuring amazing talent from the regular talent nights. At the stage and around the event you’ll find all this and more…

Bunny Nightingale:

With an alluring voice, a beautiful smile and a cheeky wink, step back in time with vintage style entertainer Bunny Nightingale. Singing golden classics from the bygone era, and modern songs with a jazz and swing twist… from Glen Miller to The Killers there is something for everyone to enjoy so get ready to dance and sing along!

Don’t miss these four hand-picked, fantastic artists from the N19’s incredibly high-quality open mic nights.

Tottenham Community Choir: The incredibly diverse choir got together in 2009 when locals decided to set the choir up so they could  meet their neighbours and sing together.   

More entertainers across the site:

  • Andy Hamilton
  • Nick Putz
  • African Drumming with Amberliegh
  • Third Age Ukulele Band
  • Bird of Paradise

We want to thank Vinci Construction for providing the generator to power the stage, and once again thank the N19 for everything they do to make this happen.

Yummy Food!!

All this and food from Pickle Pockle (vegan food), Master’s Home Touch (Caribbean food), Joyland Catering (Indian food), and coffee/tea, cakes and buns from Mr Sicilian.

Win Something Quite Lovely in the Raffle

Every year Stroud Green Traders and the wonderful Pretty Shiny Shop get together to create the always amazing Wray Crescent raffle. Over the last two years people have walked away with fantastic prizes, including meals, toys, gifts and more. The raffle is really important to the festival – it is a big part of how we pay for the event, so please buy tickets on the day.

So many stalls to explore

Everyone likes to explore all the interesting stalls at a festival. The Wray Crescent Festival is no exception. You’ll find lots of different stalls, including lots of delightful and unique things made with love from across the local area. We also urge you to try your luck with our coconut shy (and donate deeply to help keep this event alive). Some of what’s coming includes:

  • Dr Bike, want some cycle maintenance? Come and chat with Dr Bike.
  • Local honey – if you suffer hay fever eating a spoonful of this every day will help. Also it’s organic and quite delicious.
  • Hand-made clocks
  • Mayaroma Oils: Handmade essential oil blends for the home.
  • Coconut shy – and a chance to buy the Made in N4 cups!
  • Wray Crescent History Exhibition.
  • Even a little fortune telling.

More stalls are signing up all the time, so if you would like to set up your own stall, or run a blanket stall at the event, please get in touch.

Your kids will be utterly spoilt for choice

There really is so much for kids to see and do at the festival this year, there’s all the other stuff going on during the day, and brilliant sports and games to choose from too. Along with everything else on this page, your kids can look forward to:

  • Free face painting with the wonderful Mia.
  • Bobby Bubbles – he’s blown bubbles for royalty – check his Insta here.
  • Free Bouncy Castle.
  • Punch and Judy with the phenomenal David Wilde. As seen at the V&A Museum, Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood, Sothebys, BBC TV, and on July 26 in Wray Crescent. There will be two 30-minute shows during the day.
  • Drumming workshops with Amberliegh, a community-based charity dedicated to empowering children and young people through creative arts and cultural programmes.
  • Crafts and stories with Islington Libraries – support your local library!
  • The Incredibly Chaotic Parents Versus Kids Tug of War (if we get it together).

Working for our community

We are a local community group. We believe in the power of communities, so we are delighted to invite groups active in our community to join us at the festival every year. Come and meet all of these community champions at this year’s event.

  • Minority Matters, Empowering young people from isolated communities through engagement projects that empower the parents and inspire the young.
  • Cycle Islington, a volunteer group that campaigns to improve facilities for cyclists and encourage more people to take up cycling.
  • Kick Back, Reducing violence, providing positive activities, and increasing opportunities for young people. 
  • Switchboard, Switchboard is the national LGBTQIA+ support line.
  • Mary’s Youth Club, A powerful organisation providing open-access youth work.
  • Gamcare, Founders of the national gambling helpline.
  • Amberliegh. Empowering children and young people through creative and performing arts.

You want more? We’ve got more — activities!

We are grateful that sports and games will be handled by the lovely people from SportSchool. They specialise in using physical education as a tool to create varied, fun and interactive opportunities to teach physical, cognitive, social and emotional skills.    

We are adding more stalls and other entertainment all the time. If you want to perform, would like to sponsor the event, or run a stall, please make contact.

See you on July 26 at midday.

And please, please donate toward this free community event. All the money we raise goes toward the event or to help pay for the work we do across the park throughout the year.