Pontardawe Festival is an annual festival

Festival

A festival or gala is an event, usually and ordinarily staged by a local community, which centers on and celebrates some unique aspect of that community and the Festival....

 of world music

World music

World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...

 and dance

Dance

Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....

 which is held every August on the playing fields in Pontardawe

Pontardawe

Pontardawe is a town of some 5,000 inhabitants in the Swansea Valley in south Wales...

, Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

, UK

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

.

The festival is run by volunteers on a not-for-profit basis and has been held every year with one exception since it first started in 1978. Read about the full history of the Pontardawe Festival at their website. Pontardawe Festival history

It has received funding in the past from the Arts Council of Wales

Arts Council of Wales

The Arts Council of Wales is a Welsh Government sponsored body, responsible for funding and developing the arts in Wales.Established by Royal Charter in 1946, as the Welsh Arts Council , when it merged with the three Welsh regional arts associations...

, but in 2006 the council decided to reduce funding to the festival and ask it to apply for lottery funding instead.

Pontardawe got lottery funding in 2006