Organisers of the inaugural Angus & Dundee ‘Roots Festival’ are forging ahead with arrangements for the festival which will provide a focus for people whose ancestors came from Angus & Dundee to visit the area to find out more about their ancestral homeland. The week-long festival will take place from 6th – 13th September 2008
The Festival will include a packed programme of activities with visits to ancestral sites, workshops, living history re-enactments, talks, demonstrations, workshops, film shows and much more.
Angus & Dundee’s Ancestral Tourism Project Manager Gillian Harrower said, ‘The aim of the Roots Festival is to showcase Angus & Dundee to people from across the world. It promises to be a fun, entertaining and informative week, giving people with their roots in the area a true flavour of what life was like for their ancestors in days gone by. We look forward to welcoming many hundreds of people to the area for this very special event in 2008. In addition, we’re also asking tourism operators across the region to promote the festival to their guests and encourage them to come along to individual events in the festival programme during their stay’.
The Festival will be launched in style at a glittering Gala Dinner at Guthrie Castle near Forfar, with guest speaker Nick Barratt from TV’s ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’. Other activities will include:
If successful, it is hoped that the Festival can form a key part of the celebrations for Scotland’s Year of Homecoming in 2009.
Tickets for individual events in the festival programme are scheduled to go on sale in April – for full details of the programme or to find out how to purchase tickets, go to www.tayroots.com or see local press for details.
The Roots Festival is a key element in a major two-year initiative which aims to capitalise on increasing interest in family history worldwide and to tap into the estimated market of 50 million people across the globe with Scots ancestry, many of whom have their roots in Angus & Dundee.
