The Melbourne Festival 2008 consists of an Art & Architecture Trail and a Festival of Performing Arts.

The Art & Architecture Trail, the core of the Festival, takes place over the final weekend, the 13th and 14th of September. The Festival of Performing Arts are over a fortnight from the August 29th to the 14th of September.

For those who have been before, the Concert Programme will be the same mix of music for all, with pub blues, folk, rock, choirs, operatic, and classical.  Likewise, the Trail Weekend, will have 80+ professional artists in private houses and public halls around the historic centre of Melbourne, with amateur groups of artists, an Open Exhibition, heritage sites and trails, buskers and food.  The difference is that in celebration of the National Year of Reading, we wish to make Literature a running theme, spoken, written, bound, drawn, sung; as poetry, stories and comedy.  If you have never been, it is a great weekend out, (you will never get round in just one day).  For regulars, there is enough the same and plenty that is different.  Festival 2008 will be as fresh as ever.

There is no better opportunity to buy quality art and crafts direct from the makers at the best possible prices.  As a policy, we take no commission from the artists, only a modest subscription fee.  We want them to make money, (or they won't come back), and for you to pay a fair price for original art.  Nothing is imported, nothing is mass produced. The artists stand alongside their work and it is all for sale. Any money the Festival makes is ploughed back into Festival.  We are a volunteer organisation; we do it for fun.

The Melbourne Festival Award winner for 2008 will be exhibited in the Thomas Cook Gardens on the High Street.  The Melbourne Festival Awards were started in 2006 and the award winners have now found permanent homes in Melbourne.   For 2006, Andy Oldfield's Derbyshire limestone benches can be seen at any time under the chancel arch in the Parish Church; Hazel Atkinson's "Shoe Chandelier" is hanging in Melbourne's Public Library and Liz Emery's felt tryptych of Melbourne Pool is in the hall of Melbourne's junior school.   For 2007, Laura Donaldson's roofscape of Melbourne will be hung in the Parish Council chamber when it has been refurbished, Andy Oldfield's memorial bench is to be installed in Melbourne Cemetery in the Spring and Liz Emery's 4-panel screen, (a Melbourne Map), is installed in Melbourne's infant school.               

For Festival 2007 we had more than 30 private houses, public halls and churches, hosting visiting artists.  The full list of available properties is not yet known, but amongst them will be Melbourne Hall, the Dower House, Castle House, the Thatched Cottages on Castle Square and many others, none of which are normally open to the public. In these houses and halls artists and craftsmen and women will be exhibiting alongside amateurs and local art and craft classes in the Leisure Centre.   All the work is original, for sale and the artist and craftsman or woman will stand alongside it and lots of them will demonstrate their skills. The will be no imports, no repro, no middlemen, something for every taste and no tat. As in previous years, food will be everywhere and buskers in odd places all weekend.  In addition, we are planning an Easy Access Trail where people with restricted mobility can visit.