Llandudno Arts Festival promises a trip back in time to the Victorian seaside era

Next weekend marks the first ever Llandudno Arts Festival, with three days of free events scheduled to celebrate the town's rich history and showcase the very best artistic talent from the area and beyond.

Much of the action will be taking place in six specially converted Victorian bathing machines, which will be dotted throughout the resort and will act as mini mobile theatres and galleries.

The festival has been curated by Marc Rees, who brought the Adain Avion project to various parts of Wales last July as part of the Cultural Olympiad. For those who missed it, it was a mobile art space created from the fuselage of a DC-9 airplane.

Marc told me that he hopes Llawn, as he calls the arts weekend, will delight locals and tourists alike and can become a fixture on the annual cultural calendar.

"The idea for the weekend was dreamt up by the Mostyn gallery and Mostyn Estates who were keen to design an initiative that would bring visitors to the town in the quiet season and give tourists a reason to come back after the summer.

"It needed a hook and I wanted to root the whole concept in local history. Llandudno is best known for the Victorian era and there are many architectural gems here.

"I looked into the cost of building the iconic Victorian structure of the bathing machine because there are so many historical photographs of them peppered along the beach."

Staggered by how much it would cost, Marc decided to look around and through his links to Brighton struck veritable gold as the Brighton Festival agreed to lend him six collapsible bathing machines for the weekend.

These form the beating heart of the festival and will play host to a series of specially commissioned performances, installations and music.

Among them is Marc's own specially created piece, Time Travellers, which follows two members of the Victorian gentry as they take a journey in their time travel apparatus to visit Llandudno in 2013.

En route they get lost in the 1970s with the result being that when they arrive, their heads are stuck in disco balls and they are prone to outbursts of impromptu 70s dancing. Their seaside rituals, picnicking, bathing, promenading and fending off seagulls can be observed via binoculars from inside their time travel machine.

Another of the bathing machines will play host to local artist Antonia Dewhurst who pays homage to the tradition of the Victorian seaside photographer with her kitsch souvenir mugs capturing people's likenesses. Meanwhile in another machine Brighton's Boogaloo Stu will invite visitors into a world of sock-puppetry, crystal ball gazing, and creating your ideal partner.

Away from the bathing machines Marc has curated a raft of other eclectic activities to delight and amaze in equal measure.

He said: "Thanks to the generosity of Mostyn Estates a number of buildings which are not usually open to the public will be transformed into cultural venues for the weekend.

"Among them is the St Tudno Castle Hotel where an installation that draws on the relationship the social reformer John Bright had with Llandudno has been created by myself and artists Rob Pitwell, and Isobel Crawford."

The Tabernacle Baptist Chapel will also host a performance, Distawrwydd, to commemorate its extraordinary past, starring dancer Eddie Ladd and musician Helen Wynn Parri. The piece borrows from the building's connection to its former minister Reverend Lewis Valentine who became well-known as a founder of the Welsh Nationalist Movement.

The town's Camera Obscura is also being specially re-opened for the weekend and there will be a pop-up cinema, poetry recitals, outdoor performances and arts installations throughout Llandudno over the weekend, with a new portrait of Lord Mostyn being exclusively unveiled on Saturday ahead of the Crowning the Crooner award for Llandudno's King or Queen of Hotel Entertainment.

The Llandudno Arts Weekend takes place from 20-22 September 2013. For full details of events and timings visit llawn.org.