Celebrating community & the best of what Dartmoor has to offer!
You might have heard of Dartmoor Outdoor Festival or seen some of our posts on social media, but we thought it might be helpful to those of you wondering what it’s all about if we took a few minutes today to delve into the what, why, how and when of this year’s festival!
Dartmoor Walking Festival started in 2016 as an annual celebration of walking on Dartmoor. Simon Dell ran the festival which takes place annual. Over the years, the festival has raised over £10,000 for its chosen charity, Devon Air Ambulance.
However, coinciding with his decision to step down as Director of Moorland Guides earlier this year, Simon Dell also decided that 2024 would be his last year running the festival. He passed the reins over to his successor at Moorland Guides, Hannah Durdin and local outdoor instructor, expedition leader, Mountain Leader and Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, Richard Matthews.
We saw the opportunity to take an existing event and develop it into a larger event that really celebrates everything Dartmoor has to offer. Consequently, we rebranded it to become the Dartmoor Outdoor Festival and have put together a fantastic programme that includes, workshops, climbing, live music, family friendly events (including their very own Festival letterbox trail), film showings, running events and of course, plenty of walks!
In 2025, the festival will run from Friday 29th August – Friday 5th September. Princetown will be the hub of the festival but rest assured, there will be opportunities across all 368 square miles of the moors to get involved with.
We were delighted that Dartmoor National Park Authority and Dartmoor Preservation Association requested to be lead partners on the event and working with them, have identified three aims of the festival:
- To sustainably highlight the recreational activities that can be enjoyed on Dartmoor
- To encourage engagement from those in the surrounding areas and community
- To boost tourism
We are passionate about sustainability and accessing Dartmoor responsibly so are making sure that we can incorporate this into all our events and messaging. We are also keen to make engagement as affordable and accessible as possible. In order to do the latter, we have been delighted that continuing in their years old tradition, the Wheeled Access Group will be running six accessible walks during the festival, that DNPA are running a FREE Dartmoor Discovery Day at Haytor to launch the festival on Friday 29th August, and that we have been able to fund a selection of events so they are free to those that cannot afford to attend the paid events.
Now with less than six months to go, we’re busy finalising all the details of the festival and sharing information about the different events for people to book onto. We’ll keep you updated with news but if you’d like to have a look at what’s going to be happening and start planning your festival experience, you can see our programme (and book onto events!) over at www.dartmooroutdoorfestival.co.uk.
We look forward to celebrating with you there!
Hannah Durdin, Co-Director of Dartmoor Outdoor Festival