Bristol Kite Festival

One of the Biggest, Best, and Oldest

The Bristol Kite Festival, officially the Bristol International Festival of Kites and Air Creations is just one of many international kite festivals around the world. In most cases, they are held once every year.

Large inflatables at the Bristol International Kite Festival some years ago.At Bristol some years ago

How can I sum up everything that this massive event is, in just a few lines? I'm going to try! The Bristol festival is

  • two days of non-stop wind-driven flying, art, and culture, both air based and ground based
  • a partnership between the festival and the Bristol Children's Hospital charity
  • a forum for international goodwill, showcasing the world's best in kiting
  • a platform for breaking world kiting records, such as "the largest kite to fly"
  • an excuse for any member of the public to go out and fly their favorite kite as part of the festival

Having existed for more than 20 years, each year tends to have some of the same main features as the year before. But I'm sure the organizers try to get hold of something new and even rather special each time!



 

The BIG MBK E-book Bundle!

On this site, there's more kite-making info than you can poke a stick at :-)

Want to know the most convenient way of using it all?

The Big MBK E-book Bundle is a collection of downloads—printable PDF files which provide step-by-step instructions for many kites large and small.

Every kite in every MBK series.


 


Bristol Kite Festival Highlights

I can feel another list coming on... Here it is, a summary of some great things that were planned for what happened yesterday and the day before! Yes, after finally getting around to writing the first draft of this page about the 2007 festival, I discovered that it all happened last weekend :-/ On the opposite side of the planet, it was... I'm in Adelaide, South Australia, you see:

  • Wallace & Gromit drew attention to the hospital charity in a special angel kite show
  • Large, spectacular sea-themed kites wowed the crowd, including a 30-meter-long multicolored manta ray
  • Kite surfers demonstrated their extreme sport
  • Traditional Japanese fighting kites engaged in aerial combat
  • More extreme sports—traction kites pulled buggies and land boards
  • Kite-making workshops were held for the kids
  • A massive kite flew; in fact it was the world's biggest kite, the size of an Olympic swimming pool!

On that last point, did it actually fly? Hopefully it did, at some stage over the two days. It can't handle strong gusty wind.



 


As mentioned earlier, there's more kite-making on this site than you can poke a stick at :-)

Want to know the most convenient way of using it all?

The Big MBK E-book Bundle is a collection of downloads—printable PDF files which provide step-by-step instructions for many kites large and small.

Every kite in every MBK series.