Picture special: Creative Crawley holds Playmaker Open Day in County Mall

The arts and culture organisation, which is based at Unit 79/80 in County Mall, had free activities including music, dance, poetry, art food and more for Crawley residents to enjoy during half-term.

British-Congolese singer and multi-instrumentalist Liz Ikamba performed her African Night Fever show while Shreya Kallingal wowed with her Bharatanatyam Dance hosted a practical dance session with visitors.

Families enjoyed art with Silvina De Vita and Woodzy was on hand to write personalised poems on his typewriter.

It was a packed event and community producer Becky Jones was delighted with the turnout. “We opened the doors and we just had a flurry of people walk into the space which is fantastic,” she said. “That's exactly what we wanted. We want friendly faces coming in, people that we're familiar with, but also loads of new people that have never encountered us before. It's really cool.”

Becky added: “We're an arts organisation and we bring arts and culture to everyone every day in the town and that always looks different. It might be an acrobatic show on a shopping parade in Broadfield, it might be a festival in Tilgate Park, but today we were here at Unit 79/80, which is a temporary pop-up creative space in County Mall Shopping Centre and we are ran our Playmakers Open Day.

"This day was basically an opportunity for residents that haven't met us before, or people that have, to come and have a taster of the kind of creative stuff that might come along.”

Creative Crawley host events throughout the year and you can find out more or get involved by emailing [email protected], visit them on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok or visit https://creativecrawley.com/.