Rivers & moorland festival
June 5-6 2026
The arts & environment festival happening in Ivybridge & across Dartmoor, celebrating everyone living & working on the moor.
The Rivers & Moorland festivals are a series of community-focused events held over five years in the three Dartmoor towns of Ivybridge, Okehampton and Princetown.
The inaugural festival takes place in Ivybridge 5-6 June 2026
The festivals offer a range of creative activities that celebrate the local area and its people.
This Spring, in Ivybridge, talks, walks and creative activities will be followed by a weekend of festivities - a Carnival, re-enactment of Ivybridge’s Bridge Ceremony, interactive art installations, and creative workshops, alongside Ivybridge Town Council’s annual festival with local food, drink and performances!
We’ll also be bringing a number of creative commissions awarded to South West based artists including:
CANOPY is an immersive sound installation by Lorna Rees Company. Joyful, hopeful, and thought-provoking, CANOPY celebrates the connection between humans and trees. Enjoy a stroll through the temperate rainforest of Longtimber Woods listening to the trees!
Join us here for the Opening of the Festival weekend 11am Friday 5th June
ERME is a new public and digital artwork by Close and Remote, specially commissioned for the festival. Tracing the journey of the River Erme from its source high on Dartmoor to its estuary at Mothecombe, the work brings the river’s story vividly to life. Visible on the Glanvilles Mill bridge from Friday 5th June.
Discover Moor
Guided walks by Dartmoor Outdoor Festival
May-June, Dartmoor & Erme River
Moor Understanding
Talks hosted by Sustainable South Hams
Ivybridge, Friday 1-7pm
Get
Involved!
Carnival Parade
Dance, Drum & Sing-Along
Fore Street, Saturday 11am
Ivybridge Festival
Live Music & Activities
Victoria Park, Saturday 12-7pm
Dartmoor’s Dynamic Landscapes
is a partnership programme with an exciting vision to
create more naturally resilient landscapes,
to enable better understanding and to
connect people more sustainably to their place.
The inaugural Rivers & Moorland Festival is to celebrate
the people who live & work on Dartmoor.
Other projects within Dartmoor’s Dynamic Landscapes will benefit nature, particularly wetlands and ancient woodland, gather vital information about our natural heritage through citizen science approaches to river, veteran tree, meadow and moorland birds and improve car free access to green space around the three gateway towns.
Dartmoor’s Dynamic Landscapes is a partnership of organisations working together to help people better understand, conserve and connect with Dartmoor and its communities.
Supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the programme brings together 15 projects with a geographical focus on Ivybridge and the rivers Erme and Yealm; Princetown and the River Dart; Okehampton and the Okement rivers.
Partners on the project include Dartmoor National Park Authority, Dartmoor Hill Farm Project, Emergency Exit Arts, The Dartmoor Headwaters Project, the RSPB, Shallowford Trust, South West Peatland Partnership, Walk Wheel Cycle Trust, Westcountry Rivers Trust and the Woodland Trust.
Many more are involved – from schools and local councils through to community groups and local businesses. It’s testament to how passionately people feel about Dartmoor’s natural heritage.