A fund raising effort has been launched to support the High Tide Festival, which is expected to draw thousands of music lovers to the riverside in Twickenham this summer.

The High Tide Festival is a community based music and spoken word festival which showcases the best local, established and young bands and performers.

The return of the festival last year following the pandemic was a huge success and the event - to be held on Sunday, July 17 - is predicted to attract even bigger crowds.

The target amount of money needed to put on this fabulous day of music, fun and food is £12,000 with over £3,600 having already been pledged. Richmond Council is also backing the initiative, which attracts people from across the capital.

The festival is, as always, a free event to attend meaning the money raised will go primarily to pay the artists but will also contribute to staging and PAs

This year's festival will be bigger and better than ever with an increase from 8 to 15 stages and performance areas providing live music.

As well as the impressive array of live music there will be a fresh brew of the highly popular and tasty High Tide Ale as well as an expanded range of street food and specialty drinks stalls.

Of course all the fabulous cafes, restaurants and other businesses of Church Street and the wider Twickenham area are available to enjoy too.

This is the third time the festival has been organised by local vinyl shop Eel Pie Records after successful events in both 2019 and 2021.

Eel Pie Records started as an ambitious dream that the owners Phil Penman and Kevin Jones had been talking about since the early 2010s.

They had been putting on successful live gigs in the area for a while but wanted to do more and bring a permanent, music based hub to our Twickenham neighbourhood.

This led to the establishment of the ever popular Eel Pie records who have since gone to great lengths to ensure the success of the festival.

Kevin said the idea for the record shop and then the Festival emerged from what he called 'a four pint conversation'.

"Having got Eel Pie Records up and running, we thought we'd have a crack at making the Festival dream a reality," he said.

That first Festival in 2019 was a huge success. "It surpassed our wildest dreams. We felt it was important to have a focus on new music and young artists alongside more established performers," he said.

"Our guiding principle was to reignite the spirit of Eel Pie Island in its heyday – so not rehashing the music but make it more about harnessing the energy of the Eel Pie Island scene around the hotel."

Support the event here - https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/high-tide-festival-2022

Contributors to the event will receive excusive incentives depending on their level of donation, many unique prizes have already been claimed but the remaining are as follows:

£50 or more

Exclusive to Crowdfunders. High quality, fair trade, organic cotton T-shirt that you can proudly wear on the day.

£30 or more

Signed Jarvis Cocker CD - Jarv Is ~ Beyond The Pale CD signed by Jarvis Cocker.

£40 or more

Exclusive High Tide lino prints by Donna Enticknap

Beautiful lino prints of a cassette tape, titled High Tide 2022. Hand-carved and individually hand-printed by local artist Donna Enticknap.

£150 or more

Unique Goat Girl mask from 'The Crack'

Totally unique mask, hand-made by Mollie Pendelbury and worn by guitarist L.E.D. from the band in 'The Crack' video.

£299 or more

Rega P1 Record Store Day Limited Edition Turntable

Limited to 500 turntables worldwide, the 15th Anniversary RSD turntable from Rega is based on the legendary Planar 1. Supplied with a clear perspex lid, the Rega RSD 2022 edition features a low noise 24v motor, handmade RB110 tonearm and Rega Carbon cartridge.