VALLEY

www.darvelmusicfestival.org

The Walking Festival runs (if you pardon the pun) from the 13th to the 15th of May. There are organised walks over the 3 day's taking in Hurlford, Galston, Newmilns, Darvel, Priestland and Loudoun Hill. The walks take in some of the famous landmarks in the Loudoun Valley countryside as well as the town's famous buildings and monuments.
The organised walks last 3 days, but the routes are well sign posted and can be walked all year round, maps etc are there for anyone contacting the festival site.

http://www.east-ayrshire.gov.uk/ivrp/walkingfestival.htm

The World famous musical festival is back for what is called this year The Four Seasons concerts starts in May and promises to be bigger and better than ever before and that's definately not any disrespect to any of the great acts that appeared in the first 3 years, it's just practice makes perfect.
All the concerts and acts are on this site:

Darvel Music Festival

27th November 2010 Darvel Town Hall

This latest Musical Extravaganza in the "Four Seasons Festival" opened with Iain Morrison who the compere introduced as Iain Anderson, so for the first act the majority of the audience we were watching Iain Anderson. (Oops)
Onto the music Iain and his group were good but his introduction to his songs got a bit lost in the hall. My personnel favourite of this band was the drummer.
The next band on were the six piece “Skerryvore” and they certainly brought the audience to their feet quite literally, with many dancing at the front of the stage. This band were musically great with a wide range of sounds and instruments with good vocals, feet tapping rock music at its best with fiddles, guitar’s drums and pipes along with excellent vocals. This band are described as the 21st century’s answer to the terrific Scottish band “Runrig” as good as they sounded I feel they have a bit to go to wear that mantle.
Two bands who had the audience warmed up nicely awaiting the main band of the evening who were "The Peatbog Faeries” from the Isle of Skye. The band has a full range of instruments pipes, whistles, guitars, keyboards, fiddles, drums and even a brass section. I felt this band need a vocalist, as I found the music became a bit repetitious.