You can’t come to Kingston’s annual International Youth Arts Festival this summer, so it’s coming to you instead.

The festival – which will give young people from around the world an opportunity to share new work created during lockdown as well as debate the future of the arts with industry professionals – is going online this weekend (July 3-5). The programme is available at www.iyafestival.org.uk/digifest-2020

Charlotte Levy of Creative Youth which is organising the ‘digifest’, said: “International Youth Arts Festival Digifest offers an energetic and eclectic weekend of music, drama, dance, circus, visual arts and theatre with companies performing from as far away as Hong Kong and Kenya as well as UK artists presenting brand new pieces of work.

“Accompanying the performances is a series of panel discussions. So You Wanna Work in the Arts will discuss and debate the major issues facing the arts today and in the future.

“Please join us for a weekend of performance, inspiration and debate and help us spread the word!”

Among the international contributions will be performances by the Youth Theatre of Kenya and City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong.

Audiences are invited to take part in the festival by watching online or getting involved in the live panel discussions through Zoom.

The live festival, which usually hosts around 200 events over ten days and is one of the UK’s biggest multi-arts festivals for performers under the age of 27, was cancelled because of the pandemic.

Pictured are the Cirque du Chennai. Watch their performance, You Can’t Keep Circus Locked Down! on Saturday, July 4 at 11am here.