The Jane Austen Festival will be making its annual return to the city of Bath this September to celebrate the popular author’s writing, life in Bath and all things Regency. Highlights for the 2009 festival include a Guinness World Record attempt and a real-life Regency marriage!
One of the most popular events to feature every year is the Grand Regency Promenade – a spectacular costumed walk through the centre of Bath. This year’s Promenade will take place on Saturday the 19th September at 11am and will attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the largest gathering of people dressed in Regency costumes starting at the Roman Baths and finishing at Queen Square.
Organisers hope to see over 200 people taking part to smash the current record. The Promenade is open to anyone to join and tickets can be purchased from the festival’s website – the only criteria being that all participants must dress in Regency style!
A rather unusual addition to this year’s festival programme is a real-life wedding. After months of preparation a couple will be tying the knot at their dream Regency Wedding on the 19th September. The ceremony will take place at 4pm and the couple are inviting people along to help celebrate their big day. All guests will be required to dress in Regency costume.
The festival will run from the 18th to the 27th September with a programme of 44 events including learning how to dance, read, write, sew, bathe, dress or indeed eat like Jane Austen.
Jasmine Simmons leisure marketing manager for Bath Tourism Plus says that the allure of Jane Austen doesn’t just end at the Festival, “Visitors can make the most of the Festival by staying for a few days and enjoying everything that our wonderful Georgian city has to offer”.
Download a free audio tour and discover all the places that inspired Jane Austen to write. The tour explores highlights of the city and includes extracts from Jane Austen’s novels and letters, which brilliantly describe Bath as it would have been in its Georgian heyday.
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