This year’s festival theme is Fair Play and we’ve teamed up with Newport City Council’s Fairness Commission to explore the idea of fairness in Newport.

Parade: Take part in the colourful vibrant “Fair Play” carnival parade as it wends its way from Newport Rugby Club through the streets of Maindee, and on to the festival site at Maindee Primary School.

The parade will be all about fun and games, featuring giant footballs, goal keepers’ gloves, and scrabble pieces. There’ll be spectacular dancing and drumming from Newport’s own SeneGambian and Spanish Latin American associations. If you want to take part in the parade contact Andy at andy@ malarkyarts.co.uk or just turn up at 11.30am at Newport Rugby Club on July 9 and join in, the more the merrier.

Performances: There’ll be lots of fabulous entertainment throughout the afternoon on the three main stages and across the site. The site opens at 1pm with the arrival of the parade, when you can settle in for a packed afternoon. The main stage hosted by Newport City Radio’s Kym features Maindee’s Got Talent, homegrown musical talent battling it out, Urban Circle’s DJ set, Maindee’s Bollywood Belles, rock artist Nigel Blackmoor, Kora player Joshua Doughty, folk band Dragon’s Breath, and reggae outfit Connor and the Conmen.

For a more acoustic feel head over to the more relaxed Garden Stage where you’ll find Maindee School’s The Wild Crew, Eveswell School’s Celtic Folk Band, singer songwriter Rhys Hone, The Maharajah Blues, folk crew Stick in the Wheel, and other local folk musicians.

If the spoken words more your thing there’s the spoken word tent with story telling from Dick Berry and performance poetry from artists including Mike Church, Rhys Trimble and Des Mannay.

Film buffs may want to pop across to the Neon for the Maindee Fairness Film festival. Films showing are The Divide, a feature documentary exploring what it means to live in a society which is divided between the very rich and very poor people, ExTchange made by local filmmaker Nizmo Muhlanga and the Maindee Street media team, and a film made by students from the University of South Wales documentary film course who are exploring different perspectives of fairness. Screenings start at 2.30pm, finishing at 4.30pm.

There’ll be field performances and walkabouts from Tinshed Theatre, Eveswell Primary Taiko drummers, and a range of different dance companies.

Splash some paint around with Mrs Clark who is “inviting the neighbours around to paint”, draw a picture with the amazing Robodraw courtesy of Bristol Hackspace, make a cosplayer costume with the Geeked Fest crew, plus lots more games, activities, world food, various craft and information stalls and a bar!

Evening entertainment starts at 8.00pm with a gig in Maindee Library from London-based Stick in the Wheel £5/£4 on door). Their raw take on traditional English folk was a real hit at 2016 Glastonbury. End the night with Ska favourites, Skarcasm, at The George on Chepstow Road.

IT’S WARM, FRIENDLY AND GREAT FOR FAMILIES, SO DO JOIN US. FOR MORE INFO CONTACT INFO@MAINDEE.ORG, ADMIN@MAINDEE.ORG, OR CHECK OUT THE MAINDEE FESTIVAL FACEBOOK SITE.