Inspiring and enabling young people to participate in the arts

Annual Taunton Youth & Culture Festival

TYCA

We have received continuing generous support from the Brownsword Charitable Foundation, Somerset West and Taunton Council and others to deliver an annual arts youth festival for young people aged 5-25 and involving several schools, branded TYCA (Taunton Youth Culture and Arts). The first TYCA festival took place in 2019 and our aim was to build it year by year to a bigger and better event with wider participation. These plans were thrown of course by the Covid epidemicbut by 2020 we had to dramatically change tack. Our TYCA 2020 festival had to be delivered entirely online, but there was excellent participation, some fine performances and impressive viewing figures. TYCA 2021 and 2022suffered a similar fate and once again many live performances were halted as the virus spread through schools. But we managed to were also affected with performances postponed and re-scheduled performances – music, drama and dance – and these took place very successfully at the Brewhouse Theatre in March 2022.

Not wishing to confuse things further and being ultra cautious in case Covid hit us yet again, we set our sights at a smaller event in May 2022 with a young peoples’ The Tyca 2022 festival commemorateding the Queen’s jubilee year. Young peopleThe youngsters were mentored by arts professionals and celebrated the jubilee interpreted the theme via dance, song, musical performance, puppetry, spoken word and visual arts, culminating in an energetic ‘Jubilee Jamboree’ performed for the public outside Taunton’s Brewhouse Theatre.

Throughout this period we also expanded our activities in schools and local communities, sponsoring professional artists and local arts organisations to run a wide variety of arts workshops. For many young people, this was their only opportunity to engage in the arts.

In 2023 we ran a hugely expanded range of activities in schools and a full Youth Festival in and around the Brewhouse theatre . More details are below. We are now busily preparing for TYCA 2024 If you are interested in joining us, you can sign up at the bottom of this page or go to the Festival website for more details and to view past performances!

Our TYCA Festival website provides more details and photos.

TYCA 2023

Our biggest festival to date!

We produced 3 main free festival events where 288 live performers and 291 exhibitors presented original work to 3,375 live audience members and another 50,000+ on the radio.

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Our results in numbers

2,595

Young Participants

244

Session Delivered

5,867

Cumulative Participation

288

Live Performers

291

Visual Arts Exhibitors

3,375

Live audience Members

50,000+

Radio Audience

22

Partner Organisations

Delivery partners

We were able to deliver sessions in Taunton’s most underprivileged areas including Priorswood, Holway and Lambrook.

We were able to reach a large proportion of Taunton’s LGBTQ+ young people, BME young people and those experiencing intersectional challenges including neurodiversity.

Want to work with us next year?

Complete the form and tell us your interest and we will contact you shortly.

TYCA - Register Your Interest

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