The opening event for the Kidderminster Arts Festival was the Town Crier Competition, with six town criers from around the region competing with each other over judging classes such as clarity, loudness, confidence and partner’s attire.
A group of town centre visitors gathered around the Town Hall steps to enjoy the spectacle where town criers, who are historically delivers of news to towns before the era of newspapers and modern media, rang their bells, called their “oyez’s” and cheered each other on. This was the first time that Kidderminster has hosted a town crier competition.
Mark commented: “This was enormously entertaining I really enjoyed it. It was a lot of fun people really seemed to be interested in what was going on. I hope this is the start of an annual event and I hope it will grow.”