Robin Hood Festival takes to Facebook

Then turn to social media as Nottinghamshire County Council launches a Facebook campaign introducing the Festival Folk!

This year’s festival takes place from August 5 – 11 and is again going to be a fantastic celebration of the famous Nottinghamshire outlaw Robin Hood in his legendary home of Sherwood Forest.

Each year entertainment from a variety of street performers including musicians, jesters, jugglers and market traders brings an extra buzz of excitement to the festival as Robin Hood and his adversary The Sheriff of Nottingham take part in exciting duels amid a packed programme of excitement.

Coun John Knight, Culture Committee Chairman at Nottinghamshire County Council, said: “We are excited to be profiling some of the most loved Robin Hood Festival characters on the county council’s Facebook pages for the first time this year.

“These characters bring so much to the festival and the profiles will not only give more details about them, but will also provide an exciting and interactive preview of the 2013 Robin Hood Festival.”

Launched with two months to go to this year’s festival, Facebook Festival Folk profiles will give details of the people behind the acts, photographs and character profiles, and a series of fun questions and messages from the festival folk will be posted onto the website in the run-up to the festival which starts on August 5.

Nottinghamshire County Council last year teamed up with the University of Nottingham’s medieval history department to come up with a series of historical tweets from Robin Hood on Twitter as part of Ye Olde Tweete campaign.

For more details about the Facebook campaign and about the 2013 Robin Hood Festival visit: www.facebook.com/robinhoodfestival

A new case study will be added each week, and one of the first characters to be profiled as part of the Facebook campaign is Sir Ralph of Epperstone, who is played by Ralph Needham, from Mapperley in Nottingham.

Sir Ralph said: “The Robin Hood Festival is good family fun and each year the atmosphere is special, cheerful and happy.

“I am naturally not a huge expert in social media, being from the Middle Ages (!), but it is great to hear that we are using Facebook this year so people can learn more about us and it will help us to reach new audiences through social media.”

The 2013 Robin Hood Festival is a free event and takes place at Sherwood Forest National Nature Reserve. For more information visit www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/robinhood.