Scarborough festival impresario’s masterplan to enrich the arts

In mid-2023 the emergence of a distinctive Peter Blake-esque logo design heralded the advent of a new major three-year events programme comprising a revolving annual series of seasonal festivals.

Part-funded by the UK Government’s Town Deals initiative, the realisation of this in the form of Scarborough Streets, Scarborough Art, Scarborough Fringe, Scarborough Extreme and Scarborough Lights, would come to feature an eclectic year-long spectrum of arts, heritage, music and sports events.

This hybrid of differently-themed festivals comes under the collective banner of The Scarborough Fair, a 21st century cultural adaptation of the historically significant trading event of the same name dating originally from the late Middle Ages.

Incumbent in his post since June last year, director Julian Caddy has brought his considerable specialist expertise to the challenging role of creating and developing this new multi-faceted project.

His credentials include his immediately previous 12-year tenure as CEO of the internationally-renowned Brighton Fringe.

As England’s largest annual arts festival (880 events across 126 venues with 490,000 attendances in 2023), these logistical figures illustrate the formidable organisational skills involved in such an undertaking.

Although far from being indigenous to the region himself, he maintains both long-standing family connections and a lifelong familiarity with North Yorkshire as he explained: “Even as a southerner, born in south-east London, much of my childhood would be regularly spent sitting in a car on the M1 stopping off at Leicester Forest East on our way up to see either my grandparents who lived in Thirsk, who then moved to Helmsley or my aunt and uncle and cousins who lived in Harrogate.

“Family in Yorkshire has been a massive part of my life. I also remember coming on holiday to both Scarborough and Filey.”

Initially a languages graduate from the University of West England in Bristol, (he is fluent in both French and German), Mr. Caddy’s burgeoning route to large-scale festival administration, developed inadvertently via

formal theatrical training, with subsequent roles in brand marketing, PR, theatre production, event promotion and venue management.

“Marketing, events and theatre experience, all three things have helped me enormously to understand and be able to speak the language of the people I am working with, as well as previously working independently as

a businessman.”

This essential multitude of experience and skills in what is a highly specialist niche occupation, has an additional factor in its unorthodox position of existing within the framework of a regional authority structure.

“It’s very niche.” Caddy states. “The job doesn’t sit within any of the services. The Scarborough Fair is its own service.

“The biggest challenge is that The Scarborough Fair is new. People aren’t necessarily used to the Council coming to them and saying ‘what can we do to help?’.

“It’s a culture shift which is now reality.”

Reflecting on his previous experience of working for a seaside resort Mr. Caddy said: “There are a lot of similarities between Brighton and Scarborough.

“The history, the significance of the Victorians on the town and I could say they both have also seen a period of faded grandeur in their dotage”.

Having now resided in the area for the past 18 months, he is also keen to relate his professional observations of Scarborough:

“I have seen quite a vibrant arts, music and creative sub-culture within the town which somehow relishes that it goes against the grain.

“That is something that works quite well and certainly from my experience of being an independent creator, curator and programmer and working in the fringe for so long.

“Scarborough has a fringe with a small ‘f’, there is a spirit of going your own way which resonates with me on a personal level.

“It’s that open access platform to be able to showcase the great work of people who are from here and around here.

“That is a uniquely exciting thing for this town.”

After the completion of an initial yearly cycle of events, one of his personal highlights of the festival itineraries so far, was one of the main elements of the first Scarborough Lights programme.

Of the event, the staging of a UK first at an English Heritage site, he commented: “An unmitigated positive experience was the creation of the drone display last year at somewhere which is uniquely Scarborian.

“The most Scarborian place in Scarborough - which is the top of the headland at the Castle.”

As a published advocate for the arts, he emphasises their intrinsic importance and how he would like to see their societal status elevated in Britain: “In France, in Germany, the Netherlands are three examples; you

go to those countries and culture and live performance is intravenously injected into you throughout your life.

“There is something about understanding and appreciating valuing culture on all levels.

“It is part of the DNA of the nation and part of the identity of a country.”

Alongside festival co-ordinator Catherine Goble, he is currently planning for 2025 and beyond with the ambition to explore the potential for the longer-term development of the project.

Summarising, Julian Caddy expressed his overall objective for the future:

“My perspective is that as long as I am able to do The Scarborough Fair events and they are effective and they get good audiences, then that’s where we need to be”, he added. “Scarborough Fair is a means to an

end.

“It is not about me, it’s not about the name or the structures, it is about the opportunities it creates for the artists and the local community.”

Scarborough Lights installations and illuminations are at various sites from November 15 until December 22.

Details are available at scarboroughfair.uk.