ON OUR RADAR

Bloom Festival 2024

Mental health and wellbeing event returns with a day of workshops, talks, poetry and performances.

Leigh Curtis

Exeter Phoenix is hosting a free one-day event promoting mental health and wellbeing on Sunday 12 May.

Bloom Festival aims to celebrate mental wellbeing and raise awareness of mental health issues with a programme of workshops, talks, films, poetry and performances.

Workshops offer opportunities to learn to play the ukelele with Dickon Fell, use bargello needlepoint technique to create a bookmark with Exeter Girl or join a conversation about anxiety facilitated by Bridge Collective.

The programme also includes an interactive talk with local writer Louisa Adjoa Parker about resilience and a session with Isobel and Phil from Exeter theatre company Four of Swords exloring how to build a support network.

There will also be a Spork! open mic plus performances by Isobel Jeffrey, also from Four of Swords, and cabaret from Rite to Freedom and MoMENtum.

Alongside movement, meditation, singing and “Yopo” sessions there will be a family rave and a programme of short films.

Bloom Festival Sunday 12 May 2024 Exeter Phoenix

Launched in May 2022, Bloom Festival is an annual mental health awareness event timed to mark Mental Health Awareness Week, a national campaign initiated in 2001 by charity Mental Health Foundation.

It is supported this year by Iron Mill College and the Co-op Local Community Fund.

Subscribe to The Exeter Digest - Exeter Observer's essential free email newsletter

Your personal information will be processed and stored in accordance with our Privacy Policy

Bloom Festival 2024 is on Sunday 12 May at Exeter Phoenix.

Visit the Bloom Festival programme webpage on the Exeter Phoenix website for more information and to book session places.


Democracy doesn't work when people don't know who is deciding what on whose behalf and what the costs and consequences of those decisions will be.

Exeter Observer is proving that reader-funded media can deliver the independent public interest journalism our local democracy needs.

Upgrade to a paid Exeter Observer subscription to support our work and get access to exclusive premium content and more.

More stories
Northbrook swimming pool

City council holds sham Northbrook swimming pool closure consultation

£600,000 Exeter Leisure services budget cut signed off two weeks before pool consultation opened as St Sidwell’s Point drains other council leisure sites.

Met Office building at Exeter Science Park

Met Office to sell Exeter Science Park supercomputer and office buildings

Disposal motivated by replacement of nine year-old supercomputer with £1.2 billion government-funded off-site Microsoft facility.

St Petrock's outreach workers with a rough sleeper

Annual city council rough sleeper count “consistently underestimates” extent of Exeter rough sleeping

Homelessness charity St Petrock’s calls on council to change count methodology which identifies fewer rough sleepers than those known by outreach workers and reflected in government figures.

Devon County Council budget meeting 20 February 2025

Devon County Council reveals perilous financial state with SEND spending having “significant impact” on cash balances

5.9% budget increase for 2025-26 conceals £22 million cuts and £66 million cost increases with “inevitable” impact on “vital” services.

Grace Road Fields March 2025

Exeter Energy insists Riverside Valley Park only viable heat plant site but fails to explain Marsh Barton brownfield rejection

Company admits River Exe water source connection merely “potential” after 2036, incinerator connection only “possible” after 2030 and solar array “will not” meet plant electricity demand while statutory objections challenge Grace Road Fields plans.

Exeter Community Lottery revenue distribution FAQ

Exeter Community Lottery income spent on gambling licence fees and costs despite council marketing and point of sale claims

Materially misleading claims that 60% of ticket sales revenue goes to good causes repeatedly made on lottery website and in official council communications as Australian multinational profits from local voluntary and community sector support.