THE programme for this year’s Winchester Hat Fair has now been released.

The free outdoor arts festival, now in its 44th year, takes place from Friday June 29 to Sunday July 1, with theatre, dance and circus-inspired events to surprise on every corner.

The festival will run throughout the city centre on Friday and Saturday with Sunday’s festivities taking place at a new venue for 2018 - the North Walls Recreation Ground, a short walk from the High Street.

It kicks off in style at noon on the Friday with the energetic and spectacular Hat Fair Parade, featuring hundreds of local school children parading from the Cathedral to the Guildhall with banners they’ve created to celebrate the centenary of some women in the UK being able to vote for the first time.

Highlights for Saturday include; Sur Mesure’s Fillage – a fusion of circus artists and musicians that combines trampoline, acrobatics and juggling with live music, Max Calaf Sevé’s dip – an interrogation of relationships in society today with breath-taking, air-twisting tricks and funky tunes and Helen Eastman Production’s Bicycle Boy – a bicycle powered musical for children and their families.

The festival moves to North Walls Recreation Ground for Sunday’s festivities, which includes performances by the international ‘hatters’, Able Mable – a showgirl with a flair for the dramatic and the ridiculous, and Jon Hicks, the International Man of Artistry whose diverse repertoire includes origami, tea making, magic chalk, deadpan comedy and dexterously executed outsized artworks.

For full details, visit: www.hatfair.co.uk.