Live Local, Think Global: the small festival with big ideas

For the past four years, Semley Music Festival has grown into a key event in our rural community's summer calendar. Over three days in July, audiences have enjoyed great live music from across the globe, delicious food and drink, an array of free arts and wellness workshops, family activities and a warm, welcoming atmosphere.

Accessibility and diversity are at the heart of everything we do.

We believe we have found a way to bring all ages together in a love of music – whether that’s blues, soul, jazz or folk-roots. We’ve had Colombian DJs mixing urban beats with African rhythms and South American indigenous music. A Welsh Nigerian R&B singer. A trio of Swedish sisters playing banjo punk. Two Brazilian bands. A virtuoso cellist. And a boogie-woogie pianist who’s performed with the Rolling Stones and Jools Holland.

All bring their unique energy to our small village, on the borders of Dorset and Wiltshire, over a weekend of diverse music and culture. For a rural area with no public transport links, it is a unique community event, professionally staged and on our doorstep.

We want everyone to feel part of what’s happening. Local school children are offered free music workshops and a chance to perform on the main stage. Anyone who loves to sing can add their voice to the community choir led by an expert musical director. And all musicians and music lovers are invited to join in an unplugged jamming session round the fires at the festival’s close.

We have other plans to invite the elderly and vulnerable to an afternoon of relaxing music and to provide transport from surrounding towns and villages. Tickets are as affordable as possible: free to children and refugees and reduced for young people and the unemployed.

Big ideas but also big challenges. We think we get better every year. But every year, as our ambitions to create something of real value to our community grow, so do the costs.

It has proved impossible over the past two years to break even and it has fallen to the two of us who organise the festival to meet the shortfall. Last year, this was just over £10k; this year it was £5k.

So, although things are moving in the right direction (with debts halved and ticket sales doubling), we cannot go on.

It would be sad to think 2025 was the end of the Semley Music Festival, so we're asking for your help in balancing the books and providing funds towards 2026 when we would so love to return.

Please donate to ensure the future of this wonderful community event.