Thousands of you enjoyed the free Becontree Forever Weekender If you missed the recent Becontree Forever Weekender in Parsloes Park, here’s a highlights video to show you what you missed! More than 18,000 of you joined us for the Becontree 100 Festival on Saturday 14 August and the Roundhouse Music Festival on Sunday 15 August. Over the course of the two days, crowds were treated to performances from the likes of MOBO award winner YolanDa Brown, IDLES front man Joe Talbot, singer-songwriter Frank Turner, Neville Staple from The Specials, and The Boomtown Rats with Sir Bob Geldof. East London four-piece rockers, Outland, were also crowned winners of this year’s Roundhouse Unsigned Competition, held in partnership with Studio 3 Arts. Away from the music, festivalgoers enjoyed talks, workshops, monster truck displays, magicians, fairground rides, a classic car parade, stilt performers, and even Duggee from the CBeebies show Hey Duggee popped by. Feedback has been fantastic, and we hope you all had a great time! You can relive some of the highlights of the event in this short video. If you’re interested in more upcoming events, check our Becontree Forever and Summer of Festivals programme, including the Youth Parade taking place on Sunday 19 September!

ReadFest returns next month! Now in its 10th year, ReadFest will take place between Monday 6 September and Friday 24 September. You will be able to meet authors, hear about how to publish books, and have a chance to hone your writing skills during the three week long literacy festival. Some of the names appearing this year include author and broadcaster, Lemn Sissay OBE, biographer and great-great-great-granddaughter of Charles Dickens, Lucinda Hawksley, and Bangladeshi cookbook expert, Dina Begum. Normally held in libraries across the borough, ReadFest will be taking place online again this year. For more information and to book free tickets, visit www.pentoprint.org/readfest.