Annual glass festival returns to celebrate the region’s glass artists

The Festival of Glass returns this Sunday to its in-person format. Photos: SUPPLIES

DRYSDALE’S Festival of Glass is back and will showcase more than 10 of the region’s talented glass artists.

The annual festival will be hosted at two Drysdale venues this Sunday, September 11: the SpringDale Neighbourhood Centre and newly built Eversley Street Community Hub for the first time after two and a half years of COVID-related cancellations and postponements.

The Festival of Glass’s new Eversley Street venue will be one of the locations of this year’s festival.

Convenor of the Festival of Glass, Mercedes Drummond, said she expected numbers to be lower than previous events, but the committee is excited to see the festival return to its usual in-person format.

“We normally get around 3,000 people attending the Festival of Glass and we realise we’re unlikely to get those numbers this year.

“But we’d like to think we’ll still get a reasonable number of participants on the day and start getting things moving in the community again.”

This year’s event will be the first time the Festival of Glass will take place in the group’s new studio at the Eversley Street Community Hub on 21-27 Eversley Street.

Deputy Mayor Cr Trent Sullivan, Drysdale glass artist Glenda MacNaughton and Festival of Glass Convenor Mercedes Drummond.

“It’s almost like an opening of our new studio, we’ve never had a physical home in the past, so that’s really exciting for us as well,” Ms Drummond said.

More than 700 items will be on display with 13 exhibitors and three demonstrators to showcase more than 60 art pieces each.

Hundreds of residents and visitors are expected to attend Sunday’s event.

The festival’s committee had planned to host this year’s event in February, which was postponed due to COVID, and again in September but cancelled the event following the death of founding member and former secretary Patrick Hughes in June.

“Patrick has been an incredible presence in our festival committee,” Ms Drummond said.

“He was in the inaugural group that instigated the festival, so his sudden death really shocked us, but knowing that Patrick would have wanted us to go ahead with the event, we ratified the festival’s date at our last meeting.”

The event will run from 10am-4pm. Children under 12 can attend the event free of charge, entry for adults is $2.

More information can be found at festivalofglass.net.au