At Live to your Living Room, our aim is to bring the very best of music festivals directly to people’s homes and gardens!
This year we partnered with Furness Tradition, a volunteer-run festival that celebrates the folk music and folk traditions of Cumbria, in the heart of beautiful Ulverston.
“Furness Trad” hosted a fantastic double-bill of Wychbury and the Madeleine Stewart Trio in the summer, and will be hosting fiddle legends Darol Anger & Bruce Molsky later this month.
We caught up with Gordon and Les from Furness Tradition to learn more about the festival, why hybrid gigs are so important, and uncover the tourist hotspots in Ulverston!
Find out more about the venues we partner with: Foxlowe Arts Centre and The Met.
- We’re so pleased to have you on board with us – welcome! Can you tell us a little bit about Furness Tradition and how it came to be?
Furness Tradition is an Ulverston-based charity and folk-arts development group, created to bring the best from the wider folk world to Furness but also to celebrate and share the traditional music, dance, stories, and crafts of Furness and South Lakeland.
It grew from local musicians and dancers who began researching regional tunes and traditions, then bringing them back into community life through sessions, workshops, schools and performances. The annual Furness Tradition Folk Festival became the public celebration of that work: a weekend of concerts, ceilidhs, dance, storytelling, crafts, and free events.
It has been running since the late 1990s and was incorporated as a charity in 2006. In addition to the festival, Furness Tradition hosts concerts, workshops and a weekly session year-round. We also host an hour-long weekly folk and roots radio show on our local station CanDoFM.
2027 will be our 28th festival, which is very exciting!
- What made you decide to join forces with Live to your Living Room?
We joined forces with Live to Your Living Room because it helps us make what we bring here more accessible.
Our events are rooted in bringing people together in Ulverston, but streaming means that people who cannot travel, or who simply prefer to watch from home, can still share in the experience.
We particularly like the 72-hour playback, as it opens a window for folks who can’t be with us for the show while helping us introduce brilliant artists to an even wider community.
It feels like a natural extension of what Furness Tradition has always been about: keeping folk music vibrant, welcoming and open to everyone.
- What are the main reasons why festivals should consider hybrid gigs, that is, gigs that are in-person with a simultaneous online livestream?
Hybrid gigs let festivals welcome more people without losing the energy of a live audience. They can reach those who live far away or face mobility, health, caring, or financial barriers, while also giving ticket holders the chance to watch again.
For a community festival, the real value is inclusion: the room still matters, but the festival can reach beyond its walls.
- You’ve had lots of brilliant folk musicians perform at Furness Tradition over the years, including Holly Clarke & George Sansome, Iona Fyfe, and Maddie Morris. Who would you most love to see perform at the festival?
We love to keep creating space for emerging artists – the next Holly, Iona or Maddie – because discovering and supporting new voices has been an enduring aspect of Furness tradition and one of the most exciting parts of the festival.
We’ve run large hall concerts for Duncan Chisolm in the past, and we’d love to bring that to the festival weekend. Equally, the festival is an opportunity to bring a broader range of artists, so a big Canadian group (like Le Vent Du Nord) or a group that celebrates Gaelic music and songs (like Sian) would be fantastic.
- Cumbria is a wonderful part of the country, and Ulverston is such a lovely place to visit! What would you recommend a first-time visitor does to make the most of their time in the town?
Start by wandering around the cobbled town centre: check out the independent shops and Market Hall, pause for coffee, and check out one of the town’s friendly pubs – if it’s Tuesday, we could be hosting a session in the Hope & Anchor!
Don’t miss the Laurel & Hardy Museum: Stan Laurel was born here, and it is a wonderfully eccentric piece of Ulverston history.
For the best views, walk up Hoad Hill to the Sir John Barrow Monument – the panorama across Morecambe Bay and towards the fells is well worth the trek.
Ford Park has a fine walled garden and orchard and lots of lovely places to eat.
Check the local events calendar before you come. Ulverston has lots of music, markets, art, and festivals happening, and that is when the town really comes alive!
Find out more about Furness Tradition: https://furnesstradition.org.uk/
Darol Anger & Bruce Molsky take to the Live to your Living Room stage in partnership with Furness Tradition on Tuesday 20 October. Buy your tickets.
