It’s Festival fever in Winchester this June, with the Winchester Writer’s Festival, the Flower Festival, the Criterium Cycle Fest and the Guitar Festival. Here’s our guide:

First up for the pedaling mad, it’s the Criterum Cycle Festival on Sunday 7th June. It’s a family-friendly affair with stunt bike displays, ‘try a bike’ activities, make your own smoothie on a smoothie bike and of course the Criterium races starting from 8 years and upwards.  Here’s a link to the provisional race schedule http://www.winchestercriterium.org/schedule/.  Events will start at the Broadway, and don’t forget that with a 1km technical circuit around the closed roads in the heart of the City Centre, you’ll need to plan ahead if you’re driving into Winchester.

The following weekend, Saturday 12^th and Sunday 13^th June, sees this year’s Winchester Guitar Festival, or WGF15. Festival highlights include Grammy-nominated Brazilian guitarist Fabio Zanon, and Cuban virutoso Ahmed Dickinson Cárdenas. They will be joined by lutenist extraordinaire, Matthew Wadsworth, for another “Late Night Lute’ concert in the beautifully atmospheric medieval St Lawrence Church.

From Friday 19^th to Sunday 21^st June it’s the Winchester Writer’s Festival, for new and established wordsmiths alike. This year’s keynote address,  ‘Making it Up, Making it Real’ will be given by the legendary Sebastian Faulks CBE (Birdsong, Charlotte Gray, Human Traces). The festival is packed full of networking opportunities, masterclasses and one-to-one appointments with literary agents, commissioning editors, authors, poets and industry experts. There are also several writing competitions on offer for participants, from poetry to children’s fiction to Tv drama. The Winchester Writers’ Conference, as it was known for many years, was founded in 1980 by Barbara Large, MBE and became the Winchester Writer’s Festival in 2013. Events take place at the University of Winchester.

From the 24^th to the 28^th June, 9am – 8pm, Winchester Cathedral will be hosting ‘Cascades – A Festival of Flowers’. There will be a special preview evening on 23^rd June with a champagne and canapé reception. Thousands of flowers will be used to create a display of contemporary and traditional floral designs, under the lead of artistic director Hans Haverkamp, who hopes his beautiful blooms will ‘surprise, overwhelm and lift’ people during their visit. Don’t miss Choral Cascades on Saturday 27^th June at 8.30pm where the Winchester Cathedral Chamber Choir will perform a programme of music with a floral theme.

The Win Guide celebrates its first birthday this month, and to mark the occasion we will be sponsoring AFD/Giant Olive’s ‘JUST DANCE’, an evening of neo-classical ballet from celebrated choreographer Antonia Franceschi (Fame, New York City Ballet) at the Theatre Royal Winchester on 20^th July. Don’t forget to book your ticket for a rare opportunity to see dancers from the Royal Ballet, Rambert, Ballet Black and Random Dance, some of the most talented artists of this dance generation, collaborating and performing together.