The annual Revival Festival gets underway later this month, with a weekend of fun-filled activities taking place at Cotswold Airport.

The inaugural Revival Festival was held last year. The event was such a success that organisers were left in no doubt to stage the event again, with this year’s festival running over two days on the weekend of 29th-30th September.

Visitors will be able to enjoy a range of exciting activities including dramatic re-enactments and demonstrations, thrilling vintage air displays, exciting rides and experience flights, hundreds of vintage and military vehicles, full size and miniature steam engines, and plenty of entertainment including period live music.

Jo Welch, Head of Events and PR at Cotswold Airport, says this year’s Revival Festival is an event not to be missed.

She said: “The Cotswold Airport Revival Festival is set to become one of the biggest destination events in the area, if not the UK. There is no other event of its kind in the Cotswolds, which is why last year attracted thousands of people for just one day.

“This year is going to be much bigger and better, and we are especially excited to be putting on air displays for the first time – a nod to our old air shows that used to be here at Kemble and our RAF history. 2018 is a year full of anniversaries, so we have lots to celebrate!”

Last year saw the inaugural launch of the festival, which started out as an informal fundraising Open Day for 500 people and ended up as a major event with over 10,000 visitors.

2018 is an especially important year for an event such as this. It marks the centenary of the end of the First World War and also 100 years of the RAF. These two key anniversaries will be marked at this year’s Cotswold Airport Revival Festival with fundraising initiatives for the Royal British Legion and Flying for Freedom, two charities that support the armed forces and veterans.

Cotswold Airport was formerly an RAF maintenance base, and later on was home to the Red Arrows, and there remain many links today with its historic roots. The aerodrome celebrates two of its own anniversaries this year as well – 80 years of the aerodrome being situated on the site at Kemble and 15 years of the current owner, Ronan Harvey, an ex-RAF engineer himself, owning the current airport.