News
A great year for Insite, the Essex Cultural Tourism Programme
Date: 20 July 2006
Insite, the Essex Cultural Tourism Programme, is already making significant progress with a range of projects that celebrate sites around the county.
Last summer saw the successful Mercury Theatre production ‘Three Heads in a Well’ tour ten sites in the county ranging from Hylands House to Rayleigh Mount. Earlier this year Insite presented ‘What Is It About Essex?’ a prelude to the Essex Book Festival. The event featured Germaine Greer who as part of the project wrote an article in the Observer newspaper drawing national attention to the positive side of the county.
During the spring of this year two innovative projects came out of the Insite creative pot. Spoke ’n’ Word developed cycle and walking tours of the Colne Valley punctuated with poetry, and led by local rock singer turned writer Martin Newell.
Meanwhile, Essex streetdiversions brought street artists from around the globe to four parts of the county peaking in a spectacular aerial dance/circus performance from Argentinean company Grupa Puja, which performed to over three thousand people in Chelmsford’s Central Park.
The 2006 programme continues in August with Souterrain, an opportunity to see the internationally acclaimed performance company Wildworks working in collaboration with local organisations and people in and around the firsite:newsite development Colchester.
The final event of the year is an Essex Food Challenge that has Chef Mark Baumann (ITV's Baumannn goes to Market); Photographer James Fletcher (EDF Energy's Photographer of the Year); and local school children identifying produce from around the county leading to a "cook-off" at Baumann's Brasserie in Coggeshall and an exhinition of original artistic images celebrating Essex landscapes and food.
The Insite programme initially runs for only three years, but there are many initiatives such as the ones above that are now ripe for development. Consequently Insite is looking to make links with local businesses to help create packages that tap into the economic impact tourism is having on Essex – currently estimated at over £1.5 billion in terms of expenditure by visitors to the county.
If you’d like to make links with the Insite programme and its events check out the website www.insite-essex.co.uk or contact Rob West at rob.west@exdra.co.uk
