AN action-packed, creative arts-filled weekend has been planned for the summer bringing together original music, workshops and visual arts in a weekend arts event — the first of its kind in Okehampton.

Ocmundtune Creative Arts is hosting the pilot festival in May as part of a long-running campaign for an arts centre in Okehampton.

With funding from Okehampton United Charities, West Devon Borough Council and Okehampton Town Council, the weekend will provide an opportunity to hear an eclectic line up of bands and solo artists from Okehampton and around the South West, including Saturday Sun, The Monkey Gland Band and Moor Reason, workshops in mask-making, singing, creative writing and storytelling, a craft fair and a visual arts exhibition.

Chairman of Ocmundtune Creative Arts Phil Bird said Okehampton was one of the only towns in the area that did not have a dedicated arts centre.

'We've been campaigning for this for the last two years,' he said.

'Every other little town around here has a creative arts centre that is beneficial to the town — Okehampton hasn't got one, so we are campaigning in the long term to change that.'

He said the weekend, being held in the Ockment Centre, will have an arts centre-type atmosphere to highlight what was going on in the town.

'We want to bring people in to the town as well as provide something special for the people of Okehampton.

'The town has got some terrific things going on and terrific people in it but they are not very visible.

'We have a mixture of local people showing and performing and artists coming in who we have worked with before through the acoustic club.

'We really want to make it quite an intense experience because it will be the first event of its kind and we want people to see what it would be like if there was stuff like this going on all the time.

'If this event is successful we hope we might be able to attract more major funding to do a long-term programme of events to enhance somewhere like the Ockment Centre for an arts centre as well as for the community.'

The arts weekend will take place on May 23 to 25.

Event brochures detailing all the artists involved will be available from various locations around the town in the next couple of weeks.