Whitby to host Yorkshire Fossil Festival: see what's going on over the weekend

Highlights including a unique Night at the Museum, circus acts and street theatre from across the world, and a wide range of fossil experts and geologists

On Saturday 10 June, between 10am and 4pm

At Whitby’s Dock End (alongside the harbour): Let’s Circus present an international street theatre spectacle featuring, from India, The Rajasthan Heritage Brass Band, playing a diverse repertoire spanning Rajasthani folk songs, Bollywood hits, sci-fi and intergalactic funk; comedy unicycle acrobats from Japan and walkabout time travellers Fabulous Contraptions.

Dock End will also play host to The Rock Showman’s Booth, a travelling museum of mineralogical marvels and sideshow of sparkling stones, and music from Olivia Rafferty.

Meanwhile, at Pannett Park, Let’s Circus will host The Stone Zone, a creative workshop inviting participants to create a gigantic land-art sculpture – join acrobats and artists to achieve seemingly impossibly gravity-defying feats.

The Yorkshire Geological Society will hold stone-cutting and polishing workshops, the National Literacy Trust will be in residence with their storytelling tent, and there’ll be live music from Olivia Rafferty.

Indoors, at Whitby Museum and the Pannett Park Gallery, find the Soap Box Stars – five to 10-minute pop-up talks throughout the day from museum curators and enthusiasts.

Palaeontological Assocation artist-in-residence James McKay will be inviting visitors to doodle their own dinosaur.

And the stars of the BBC’s Attenborough and the Mammoth Graveyard, Sally and Nev Hollingworth, will host an exhibition about their discovery.

Saturday evening at Whitby Museum will bring a special Night at the Museum (6.30pm to 8.30pm).

Guided by candlelight and a host of ethereal characters, see the museum in a new light in a truly unique immersive experience that will see stegosaurs rub shoulders with mammoths and statues come to life as acrobats and artworks become one.

Night at the Museum, for over 16s only, will also feature talks from Dr Susannah Maidment from the Natural History Museum, and Sally and Nev Hollingworth.

Night at the Museum is free, but admission is by ticket only.

On Sunday June 11, from 10am to 4pm

Party in the Park, with The Witty Look Show and the Rock Showman’s Booth relocating to Pannett Park to join The Stone Zone, the Yorkshire Geological Society, the National Literacy Trust and Olivia Rafferty.

In Whitby Museum, there’ll be talks from Dr Maidment, who’ll discuss her research into stegosaurian dinosaurs, and Sally and Nev, who’ll reveal how it felt to unearth an Ice Age mammoth.

A new Love Exploring quiz game will bring an array of dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures to Whitby over the weekend.

Festival co-director Steve Cousins says: “The festival programme is an eclectic collection of science, culture, kitsch and quirk – fitting for a fun town like Whitby and the amazing collection of Whitby Museum.

The 2023 Yorkshire Fossil Festival is organised by Whitby Museum, Scarborough Museums and Galleries, and Let's Circus, with funding from Arts Council England, the Normanby Trust, Anglo American, Whitby Literary & Philosophical Society, the Palaeontological Association, the Geologists’ Association and the Yorkshire Geological Society.

Visit: https://yorkshirefossilfestival.co.uk for more.