Croydon Summer Festival returns to Lloyd Park this summer and it’s bigger and better than ever and crucially, in these credit-crunched times, a great weekend of free entertainment.

World Party Saturday 1st August Croydon Mela Sunday 2nd August
Lloyd Park, Croydon, CR0 5RD

Headliners at the World Party are evergreen crowd pleasers The Proclaimers who stormed back to the top of the charts in 2007 with a re-working of 500 miles for Comic Relief and have just released their new album Notes & Rhymes.

Candi (Young Hearts Run Free) Staton has recently given her illustrious career a boost with her recent releases on the ultra-cred Honest Jon’s label with “Who’s Hurting Now”, described in Mojo magazine as an ‘Early contender for 2009’s album of the year.’

Kwassa Kwassa king, Kanda Bongo Man, brings his sun-drenched Cameroonian grooves – always guaranteed to nice up the area; as are major festival favourites Dreadzone and Bishi’s mix of British folk and pop alongside her rock Sitar playing.

And as if all that weren’t enough the DJ/compere on Saturday’s main stage is none other than man about town and cultural barometer, Normski.

Saturday’s World Stage features everything from the guitar virtuosity of the Eduardo Niebla Experience to hispanic stylings of the Latin Dub System via the Balkan beats of Alejandro and the Magic Tombolinos.

Croydon Mela — August 2nd
1- 8.00pm

Mela is a Sanskrit word meaning ‘gathering’, ‘to meet’ or a Fair — and Croydon’s annual Mela is one of the biggest and longest running in the UK.

This year’s Mela is being headlined by the legendary Bhangra superstar, Malkit Singh who received an MBE from the Queen in 2008’s New Years Honours List for services to Punjabi music. Malkit is probably the world’s biggest Bhangra star and will pull a crowd from far and wide.

Malkit’s namesake Channi Singh is known as the pioneer or godfather of Bhangra as founder, lead singer, director and producer of Alaap – the groundbreaking Bhangra outfit he formed in 1977.

Veronica is one of the UK’s finest Asian female artists. Singer, performer and songwriter Veronica first rose to prominence alongside Rishi Rich before achieving Bollywood success with the film ‘Kya Kool Hai Hum’ with the hit ‘Dil Mera’. Veronica has won achieved ‘Best Female Act’ at the UK Asian Music Awards (AMAs), UK Asian Pop and Media Awards and Moviebox.

Swami is a hot alternative UK Asian band who fuse traditional Asian and Western electronic beats creating the sound of the new British Asian generation and receiving big love from Bobby Friction & Nihal of BBC Radio 1 and BBC Asian Network.

Lokkhi Terra is the amazing new project from Bangladeshi musician Kishon Khan blending Bangladeshi traditions with African and Latin American and jazz traditions. Whether it’s Cuban rumba with Bengali folk, or Afrobeat played on Asian and Latin instruments, or even Brazilian Samba with Indian classical.

The MC on Sunday’s main stage will be the effervescent TV and radio presenter Anushka Arora and by her side DJ Harv from the ground-breaking Outcaste record label.

Sunday’s classical stage hosts Bireswar Gautam, a marvellous exponent of the North Indian devotional/romantic thumri singing style alongside abhinaya (mime) as well as Kathak dancing and will be accompanied by tabla and harmonium. Bireswar has an international reputation.

Grand Union Bangla Band featuring Baluji explores Indian classical music, Bhangra, Bangladeshi folk music, Bollywood, Jazz, African and Latin rhythms.

Hannah is a Kathak dancer and will be accompanied by Tarun on Sarod and Manjit on tabla; Tarun will also perform jodi pakhawaj style accompaniment on large tabla; Dylon steps up to play saxophone in Karnatic style accompanied by mridangam (carnatic classical percussion) and there’ll be Kathak and singing workshops.

Street Theatre
Street theatre also looms large over the weekend with Artizani’s Desert Island Discs and Close Act’s Giant fire breathing ‘Suarus’ dragons. They will be joined by Bjorn the life like Polar Bear on Saturday and on Sunday by Chol Theatre’s ‘Not for all the tea in china’ walkabout.

A new feature for 2009 is the Bandstand where you can picnic on hay bales and chill out to a variety of acts from smokey blues to fiery folk.

Completing this wide spectrum of entertainment will be a village sport field (with Indian tag game Kabaddi), Community Stage, interactive Council zone, huge kids’ area, funfair, international food and craft market, dance and music workshops and the giant walk in inflatable Colourdome.

Transport
15 min by train from London
East Croydon BR — Tram 3 to Lloyd Park

Car Park: £5 all day