Music, arts, inspiration and fun will enthral audiences when the National Forest's Timber festival returns to the Forest from July 5 – 7 2019. And all those who live within the 200 square miles of the National Forest can benefit from 25% discount on all ticket prices.

Timber, voted the UK's Best New Festival 2018, is a unique festival experience created in response to the National Forest landscape at Feanedock, a 70 acre woodland site near Ashby de la Zouch in Leicestershire. The woodland has been transformed from a former coalfield to be part of the National Forest, the first forest to be created at scale in England for over 1,000 years.

Through music, forests, art and ideas, Timber will connect audiences with the natural environment. The festival plays host to all kinds of magic and it is the live performances, arts and theatre that make the site come alive for festival-goers, creating lasting memories.

Festival-goers said about last year's Timber:  “The whole experience was absolutely amazing! I loved all the creativity, the great music, the inspiring artists.” “Loved it, beautiful setting, wonderful hazy ethereal feel to the whole thing … a brilliant relaxed festival.”

The site is divided into eight zones:

• Field Notes: hear music and stories from the Forest
• The Eyrie Stage: two-tier timber stage reaching into the trees dedicated to the best in spoken word and live music
• As the Crow Flies: celebrate your animal self besides the open air fire
• Elemental: earth, air, fire and water – get in touch with the fundamentals
• Halcyon Days: circus skills and woodland games
• Shivelight: wellness workshops, mindfulness, yoga and tai-chi
• The Canopy: hone your woodcraft skills under the canopy of trees
• The Common: food and forage, food stalls, bars and workshops.

Programme highlights include:

The coal mining heritage of Feanedock and the coal seams that continue to wind beneath the landscape in the heart of the Forest will take centre stage in a new piece created for Timber 2019.

Seams will take the audience on a multi-sensory journey inspired by the evocative names and diagrams of the coal seams that surround Feanedock. Don your miner's helmet and venture below ground, for a sound and light installation through dark stony bind, and nether coal, before emerging into a brave new world, viewing Feanedock in a whole new light.

Artist Dan Fox will be presenting his work Shimmer a freestanding installation with 12 branches, each with a cymbal suspended from it. The 12-channel piece is designed to be heard in the round and the audience will be invited to stand underneath the cymbal canopy and absorb the sound.

The Forest of Dreams is a performance project that combines storytelling, puppetry and projections to tell stories about music and food out in the woods. It will be a fabulous feast of live plating, music, lighting and puppetry, from B Arts of Stoke on Trent.  

In a quiet corner of the Festival, festival-goers will be invited to step into the Enchanted Woodland and meet hand-crafted creatures: an owl swooping overhead, a shy yet curious deer, playful squirrels. These puppets will glow with light as the sun sets over Feanedock.

TwistingSpace will bring their monumental wooden marble runs made out of culled rhododendron (an invasive woodland species). Suspended between the trees of Feanedock, festival-goers will be able to marvel at the prodigious carved channels as the marbles surge through the woods.

Timber will present the best in nature writing, storytelling and cutting edge ideas. Guest speakers include writer and broadcaster Stuart Maconie. Stuart is returning to Timber in 2019 for his second festival and will be talking about his book The Long Road From Jarrow.

BBC Radio 4's Geoff Bird will be hosting Wilderness Tracks where guests chose six pieces of music that soundtrack their relationship with nature. Laura Barton is an English music journalist, writer and radio presenter and she is the first guest to join Geoff. As contributing editor at Q magazine and a former staff writer on The Guardian, her Radio 4 series Laura Barton's Notes on a Musical Island' dwells on the intricate connections between music and place. 

BBC presenter and broadcaster Elizabeth Alker is one of Timber's guest curators and she will be taking over the Eyrie stage on Saturday, programming a mixture of live music, spoken word and a DJ set. Elizabeth is perhaps best known for presenting the music news on BBC6 Music's Radcliffe & Maconie show, as well as hosting her weekend breakfast show on BBC Radio 3.

Other music highlights include sound artist and DJ, Gwenno, who was hailed as one of the best British debuts of 2015, and whose work is inspired by language, music and the landscape; Jesca Hoop, whose work shines with confidence, confrontation and craftsmanship; and You Tell Me, featuring Peter Brewis and Sarah Hayes.

Timber is a collaboration between the National Forest and Wild Rumpus, an award-winning arts organisation, specialising in showcasing arts and culture in the natural environment.

Rowan Hoban, director, Wild Rumpus, says:

“We're very excited about this year's Timber. We have some inspiring speakers who really understand what the festival is about. They will be talking about their experience of landscapes. Our audiences can expect to step out of their everyday lives into an extraordinary space – which will be transformed by our artists and musicians to create a truly memorable weekend festival experience.”

Carol Rowntree Jones, National Forest, says:

“We are creating natural spaces that people of all ages can benefit from. Timber has grown out of this unique transformation, and is the perfect way to share this vision with a whole new generation of people – how trees can transform lives as well as the landscape. By coming to Timber you are part of the National Forest story and we welcome you. All National Forest residents benefit from 25% discount on all ticket prices, so do come along and join us for a fun-filled weekend in the woods.”

Locally-sourced food and drink, inspiring health and well-being activities, engaging woodland crafts and games all feature in a packed programme that will help bring Timber festival-goers closer to trees and nature.

For Timber tickets and programme information visit www.timberfestival.org.uk

Headline sponsors for Timber 2019 include long-standing local and national supporters of the National Forest:

• James Latham – festival build partner and at the forefront of sustainability in the Timber Trade industry.
• Forest Holidays – providing cabin holidays with a difference, the company is committed to creating authentic experiences in Britain's amazing forests; connecting people, nature and local communities.
• Reabrook – a family owned business based just next door to the Timber Festival site, their support has helped to create the new woodlands which surround our Festival camping and glamping areas.

 All three are longstanding supporters of the National Forest, and all signed up for Timber 2019 after supporting the festival in its first year.

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Media contact:

Carol Rowntree Jones, Media Relations Officer, National Forest Company crowntreejones@nationalforest.org  Tel: 01283 551211 / 07870 568628

Notes to Editors

1. Timber is an extraordinary new festival where music, art, forests and ideas weave together into an exhilarating weekend in the heart of the National Forest, one of Britain's boldest environmental projects.
2. It was voted Best New Festival 2018 by UK Festival Awards.
3. Timber is located at Feanedock, a 70 acre woodland site at the heart of the National Forest. Embracing 200 square miles of Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire, the National Forest is the first forest to be created at scale in England for over 1000 years. 
4. National Forest residents benefit from 25% discount on all ticket prices. New for this year is a weekend non-camping ticket, of particular interest to local people who want to enjoy the festival as a whole but do not wish to camp.
5. By attending Timber, you will not only be able to engage in a diverse and inspirational programme of culture, but you will also be part of the regeneration story of one of England's newest forests.
6. The National Forest is the boldest environmentally-led regeneration project in the country, where over the last 27 years the planting of trees has led the transformation of a landscape left scarred and derelict after the closure of the coal mines. More than 8.7m trees have been planted, transforming lives, the landscape and the economy.
7. See more about the National Forest: www.nationalforest.org