Lifetime achievement award delights folk festival director

THE musical wheeler-dealer behind one of East Yorkshire's flagship festivals has become the first to be honoured with a lifetime time achievement award at a new series of tourism "oscars".

Chris Wade, director of Beverley Folk Festival, has been awarded the Real Yorkshire award for lifetime achievement at the first ever Visit Hull and East Yorkshire Awards.

The scheme is to celebrate the track record of tourism businesses across Hull and East Yorkshire and recognise the hard work that goes into the success stories.

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Chris Wade's presentation reflected her work in the region over the past 27 years, developing the Beverley Folk Festival, which now attracts more than 5,000 visitors to the market town during the middle weekend of June each year.

Festival-goers come from all over the UK and overseas to the event, which hosts artists of national and international status, as well as offering opportunities for local talent to reach a wider audience.

As well as being the artistic director of the festival and its general manager, she also runs an internationally renowned music agency Adastra, from the village of North Dalton, where she also lives.

The agency represents top international and British artists from the fields of folk, roots, Americana, acoustic and world music, taking them into theatres, festivals, community venues and clubs in Britain and around the world.

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She said: "I am absolutely thrilled with the award. It came as a huge surprise. I have spent many years dedicating my life to the festival which has never been an easy task, especially in the current economic climate.

"It has required a great deal of begging, borrowing and persuading people to give of their time, and help in kind, in order to make the festival happen with the limited resources we have."

She added that the award should really be shared with the many volunteers and helpers that had put so much effort and time into the event over the years.

"Without them it would certainly never have reached the status it has today. I am very pleased that the work I have done in bringing people to the region to listen to folk and related music, is recognised as being important for the area."

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