Greenwich and Docklands International Festival (GDIF) has organised an exciting free festival featuring a fun packed weekend of free outdoor performing arts including theatre, dance, and street arts at the Greenwich Fair. Outdoor performances were of a high quality and diversity and included particular focus on the providing accessibility for Deaf and disabled artists and attendees with many acts having Sign language translators present in front of audiences.

The festival is a re-invention of the historic Greenwich Fair which Dickens adored and famously wrote about In Sketches by Boz (1836) where he claims to have been “a constant frequenter of Greenwich Fair, for years”. Back then Dickens described the flurry of people travelling across London in “Cabs, hackney-coaches, 'shay’ carts, coal-waggons, stages, omnibuses, sociables, gigs, donkey-chaises”. Now, however car, tube, DLR and busses were the main forms of transport for revellers attending the Greenwich Fair 2012.

On Saturday 23rd 2012, WinkBall video reporters Laurent and Saima were at the Greenwich Fair speaking to attendees and discovering what had brought them down, which events and performances they had seen and what they thought of them and why they thought the arts should be celebrated with events like this one? Speaking to a range of people at the event, WinkBall captured a great insight into the fair and discovered more about the benefits of presenting the arts in an arena for all to enjoy and for free!

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