Nick Francis and Taryn Everdeen and are the organisers of Forncett Festival, a community-run micro-festival taking place this weekend at the Forncett Industrial Steam Museum in South Norfolk. Here they explain why it had to return for a second year
We are Nick Francis and Taryn Everdeen, we both live and work at Forncett Industrial Steam Museum, organising events for the community as Forncett Festival CIC. We host monthly open mics and cinema nights in the space, as well as our annual three-day micro-festival in August. We’re both filmmakers and musicians. Nick lived in London for 15 years, and toured Europe and America with his band Goldheart Assembly before rooting in Forncett during the pandemic. Taryn studied photography and video for five years at art school in Paris, and has also now returned to Norwich, getting deeply involved in arts and culture within the community. We met almost two years ago and have been working on projects together ever since!
The first Forncett Festival was born out of a plan that completely changed shape; it was originally intended to be a two-day festival of analog film (with a few musical elements). We kept on adding bands and musicians until it morphed into a three-day celebration of grassroots music (with some film elements). We wanted to create a beautiful escape, sharing this lovely spot in the Tas Valley, introducing new people to the museum (and to each other) via the gravity of art and music. It puts Forncett on the map but also merges our past scenes (from London and Paris) with the current vibrant Norwich musical and creative community. We realised very quickly that we’d unearthed something special, and setup the CIC to anchor and protect that. Our aim is to offer a platform year-round for emerging artists and creatives, using the unique venue as a place of expression. All our activities also support the museum (which is a charitable trust), as it brings new people through the doors, introducing them to heritage engineering. It’s a great collaboration.
Our core team is us two – Nick and Taryn. We also have Ben Davies, who is our outdoors guardian, Dan Bell, who supports us with recording artist performances, and Miranda Ellis-Marchant, Chair of Trustees at the museum and a great guide and mentor for us – she helped manifest the symbiotic relationship between the festival and the museum. We also have Peter Turrell, who runs our open mics, Martin James, who will be assuring the sound, Charlotte Twining from Fifth Wall supporting with marketing (as well as offering morning yoga!), and the engineers and trustees at the museum who keep the wheels turning (literally). Plus, our awesome army of volunteers (without them, none of it would be possible!).
We threw the last one together in about a month, and incredibly managed to pull it off with the help of everyone mentioned above! Even though it was a short amount of time, we quickly discovered the identity of the festival; what our core values were; our maximum capacity; how many stages; and how we wanted it to feel and what we want people to go home with. We had amazing feedback from artists – one of our headliners said it was their favourite gig they’d ever played! We’re very small – it’s a micro-festival – which contributed to the real cohesive community that formed over those few days. We knew immediately that we had to do it again (with more organisation and refinement this time). We had a lovely response from the Forncett village locals, who were delighted to have something powerful and harmonious happen in this quiet rural area. For many visitors, it was the first time they’d ever been to the museum, which is always an unexpected discovery for them!
Nick: I’m particularly looking forward to Floral Image’s set – they’re playing the Saturday night headliner slot when we run the beam engine. I love it when the engines get in on the musical finale. Also, quite excited about our outdoor street party after the peak of the festival. Above all, I can’t wait to just reassemble with our crew, festival family & friends.
Taryn: We have quite a few artists coming over from France this year – Tom Hancock, Shakkalo & Saving Felix are all members of Paris-based songwriters’ collective ‘Listen, Marianne’ and they’ll be performing at the festival on Sunday. Also joining them from Paris is American-born folk artist The Duke of Norfolk, who (incredibly) will be making his Norfolk debut at the Forncett Festival! We’ve got a wonderfully diverse lineup that also spans the UK, with a healthy dose of awesome artists from the local grassroots scene.
It all takes place at Forncett Industrial Steam Museum in the Tas Valley, about 30 minutes from Norwich. Tickets are very limited, so we recommend grabbing yours in advance if you plan to come – weekend and day passes are available from forncettfestival.co.uk. Tickets are on a pay-what-you-can basis to keep our events as accessible as possible, with three tiers to choose from – those who can pay more help us offer reduced price tickets for those who need them. Camping is available on request (we have limited space!). We offer lunch and dinner over the weekend – wholesome meals prepared with fresh ingredients in our community kitchen. Our steampunk bar will be fully stocked, serving a selection of local drinks, with snacks available all day. All profits will be split between Forncett Industrial Steam Museum, Forncett Festival CIC & the Cystic Fibrosis Trust.
Forncett Festival takes place at Forncett Industrial Steam Museum, Forncett St Mary, Norwich, NR16 1JJ, from August 7-9, 2026, Visit forncettfestival.co.uk.
Featured image of Nick and Taryn – supplied
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