Godalming Performing Arts Festival

What is GPAF?
Welcome to Godalming Performing Arts Festival which includes Music, Dance, Musical Theatre and Speech & Drama.
Usually the Festival, held in February/March each year, has around 300 classes to cater for all ages and all levels of ability. Most classes are competitive, with marks awarded by an adjudicator. However, some music sections also have non-competitive classes. Having seen the performances the adjudicator comments on them before awarding marks and then writes a short report on each performance which is presented at the end of each class. The Festival is divided into Sections each of which is run by a Secretary dealing with entries and enquiries.
For the 2024 Festival, we have Secretaries for Dance, Organ, Piano, Strings and Wind, Ensembles and Bands, so those Sections will be running. We are unable to confirm at the moment whether we will have a new Secretary to run the Speech & Drama and Musical Theatre Sections. The Sections without the guiding hand of a Secretary (Singing, School Choirs, Adult Choirs and Contemporary Bands) will sadly not be operating in 2024.
In addition, for the last two years we have not had a Festival Director to guide the whole organisation. If you are interested in helping us by filling one of these vacant positions, please contact us through the “contact us” page of this website. We’d love to hear from you!
2024 Festival
Dates for the 2024 Festival will be published in due course.
The Syllabus for each Section, when available, will be found on the relevant Class Syllabus page
Online Entries
Entries will be open in the autumn
Our Sponsors
We are very grateful to all our Sponsors and Advertisers who enable us to run this highly regarded festival.
The annual cost to run the Festival increases year on year and our main source of income is fees for entry and admission fees to the public. Our major expenditure is the hire of halls and professional fees for adjudicators and therefore we can only break even with the help of our Sponsors, Advertisers, and Friends.
If you would like to advertise or sponsor a class please contact our our Sponsorship Secretary through the contact us page.