The Scarborough Castle Kite Festival took place on 27th/28th/29th May 2017 and was hosted by English Heritage and organised by Pauline Taylor and the Infinite Arts team. We had a fantastic weekend of flying at the Castle. It was great to see our octopus flying first thing on Saturday morning in such a spectacular setting. The wind changed at lunchtime with a shift in direction which produced a more testing wind. We tracked the promised storms on lightning maps and brought the kites down when we heard some distant rumbles. Luckily the storm passed by us!
Sunday started with lovely sunshine with strange winds. The ground winds pushed the kites one way with the lifters going in a different direction. Where’s Wally coped well in the unpredictable winds and was popular with the passing families. We loved Mike Goddard’s new kites which are made from photos using intentional camera movement and then printed onto ripstop. It was also great to see so many of Frances Anderson’s batik kites in the air at one time. They are beautiful works of art! Tom Greenfield and Josh Micheson flew 2 and 4 line kites literally all weekend and had great fun entertaining the public (and fellow kite flyers) by flying around the keep – great precision flying.
We woke on the Monday morning to a lovely sea fret/mist. The wind picked up slightly which allowed us to fly the maxi manta, which we kept it reasonibly low so that it could be seen through the mist. It was great to see so many flyers still having a go in the conditions which resulted in some atmospheric images for the spectators. Thank you to English Heritage and to Infinite Arts for fantastic and well organised festival
