Shake & Stir Festival Celebrates Another Successful Year.

Popular vintage festival, Shake & Stir, successfully returned to Southbourne for its ninth year. The annual festival featured vintage fashion, local traders, classic cars, and live music from the 1920s, 1970s and everything in between.

Over 30,000 visitors attended Shake and Stir Festival, drawn to its incredible headliners, vintage themed workshops, and classic car displays that transported retro-fans back in time. This year’s Shake & Stir was even better than the success of 2022 as Mandy Polkey, Managing Director of Stir Events CIC, explains: “Shake & Stir always brings so much excitement to the community, it was great to see the locals and vintage fans coming together. People were dressed to the nines and it’s always the best way to kick the summer off.”

Attendees dug out their dancing shoes and listened to music from throughout the years across the whole weekend, a busy lineup at the bandstand with MC DJ Mr D! Dave Norrell hosted, Saturday’s retro lineup of Susie Kimber Jazz trio, Sunstroke, Shortstack and Sides and Rip It Up. Sunday saw the likes of Retro Rita, The Big Little Theatre Company, Andy Kennet as Elvis, and Peter Gills as Jerry Lewis and if that wasn’t enough, Shake and Stir packed out the Bandstand with the headline act, Johnny Earle and the Swing Me Baby Band. Over at the Boogie Bus Stage DJ Andy Shailer was spinning the wax and Marc De Bolster sang songs from the war years.

The winner of the Show and Shine Best Vintage car competition was the Austin Burnham 1930, with the 1959 Ford Galaxy as the runner up, what a great show. Margery Daw Southbourne won the vintage window display competition with the beautiful display and the vintage colouring competition was won by a young man called Jeremy.

Mandy adds: “The whole weekend was fabulous; dance classes, fairground stalls, live music, competitions and a display of beautiful classic cars. We wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone that attended, all the stall holders, vendors, performers and of course our wonderful sponsors, We were very proud to invite Helping Homeless Veterans to be our dedicated charity this year and thank visitors for supporting them, and everyone who makes Shake and Stir the vintage event of the year!”