HOT is run by volunteers but has overheads for hosting and web development. Support HOT!
Advertise your business or your event on HOT for as little as £20 per month
Find out more…
If you like HOT and want to keep it sustainable, please Donate via PayPal, it’s easy!
Do you want to write, proofread, edit listings or help sell advertising? then contact us
Hastings Seafood & Wine Festival in pre-Covid 2018, as viewed from the West Hill (photo: HBC).
Hastings Seafood & Wine Festival makes a welcome return to the Stade open space this weekend, after a year’s absence due to the Covid pandemic. In addition to the culinary offering, visitors can enjoy popular features including music, The Classroom on the Coast and Sunday’s Jazz Breakfast. Nick Terdre reports. Continue reading…
Every week two women die at the hands of male partners. In schools around 40 per cent of girls are sexually harassed on a regular basis. Women’s Voice is inviting women to come along to Concordia Hall this coming Saturday 25 September to explore ways of empowering ourselves and challenging violence against women. Ann Kramer, chair of Women’s Voice tells HOT readers more about the project.
Seven weeks after the sewage leak at Bulverhythe beach occurred, there is still no plan for cleaning the contaminated area, nor are Southern Water and Natural England, which has to approve any plan, showing any urgency in tackling the matter. The question of compensation for affected beach hut owners has yet to be decided. Nick Terdre reports.
Join a live film event for Coastal Currents 2021, plus a spoken word workshop and live poetry performance at the Electric Palace from Poetics club members including Mae Kilha, says Annie Waite.
After almost thirty years of photography, and almost two years of Kickstarter funding and design work, John Cole’s collection of photographs entitled Generations: Hastings Fishing Families will finally see the light of day. HOT’s Lauris Morgan-Griffiths spoke to John Cole about his thoughts and memories of the Hastings fishing folk he got to know quite well – however, there will be a tinge of sadness as some fishermen featured in the book are no longer with us.
In 2017 a planning application for a large house in Ore was given approval by Hastings Borough Council (HBC) (ref HS/FA/17/00468 (‘468‘)), subject to certain conditions. The development as approved remains uncompleted. On the other hand, the building has features that lack planning permission. Following two refusals and two failed appeals, there’s a new application. Bernard McGinley reports.
Zoom Arts is about to open a new exhibition, a group show at the Warrior Square gallery. Meanwhile local visual artists interested in joining are invited to the group’s next meeting in late September. Nick Terdre reports.
If you’re young, have the writing itch and are keen to meet like-minded folk, good news: Hastings Young Writers group is about to relaunch. And the group, which will participate in Hastings Litfest and is mulling ideas for another anthology, wants to welcome new members, as they tell Nick Terdre.
Photography exhibitions are coming thick and fast in Hastings and St Leonards this year – and there are more to come. Ian O’Leary has slotted one in at Hastings Arts Forum between the PhotoHastings Summer Show at Stade Hall, Jeremy Llewellyn-Jones at HAF and PhotoHastings’ Photography Festival in October and November. Lauris Morgan-Griffiths reports.
Hastings Festival of Sanctuary is back – the annual event expressing local solidarity with those come to these shores seeking refuge from persecution will take place at Hastings Museum on Sunday 12 September. Local musicians and artists will contribute to a day of community, creativity and hope, says the organiser, Hastings Community of Sanctuary. Nick Terdre reports.
It might seem strange that a walk in itself can be a work of art. Yet there has long been a tradition of British artist walkers – or walking artists: Francis Alÿs, Richard Long, Hamish Fulton to name but three. Alÿs explains the value of his walks: “A journey implies a destination, so many miles to be consumed, while a walk is its own measure, complete at every point along the way.” Now local artist Mary Hooper has joined the walking ranks as part of the global Sound Walk September Festival. HOT’s Lauris Morgan-Griffiths was intrigued.
For a town steeped in music like Hastings, being deprived of live performance by the Covid lockdowns was particularly painful. Now it is returning, and the inaugural Hastings Rocks festival at the Oval on the August bank holiday weekend proved especially life-affirming, as Andy Gunton reports. Photos by Sara-Louise Bowrey.
As the process of finding homes for Afghan refugees evacuated to the UK gets under way, Hastings Borough Council has agreed to resettle two families out of eight allocated to East Sussex in an initial step. Local refugee support groups are also gearing up to play a role. Nick Terdre reports.
Kino-Teatr has hosted a changing cast of restaurant foods from Mediterranean to Japanese; its latest incarnation being Parlour Brasserie. St Leonards is now quite a food destination with Parlour slipping quietly into the multi-cuisine restaurant scene, joining Heist, Three Faces of Parc, Graze and Marina Fountain. HOT’s Lauris Morgan-Griffiths went to meet Claire Rooney, Parlour’s Proprietor and chef.
Hastings Literary Festival has announced this year’s programme. Halted last year due to Covid-19, it is back from 23 to 25 September, with renewed vigour. HOT’s Lauris Morgan-Griffiths takes a browse through the programme.
Since Steve Peak’s eagerly-awaited The America Ground Hastings was published, it has been high in the top ten chart for The Hastings Bookshop. HOT’s Erica Smith explores the book, the ground and the author.
