Crash Festival: Celebrating Creative Culture in Ashford

Crash Festival is set to launch on Saturday, 28th June 2025 at The Ashford Cinema. This one-day festival is a celebration of creative culture within the creative arts, bringing together industry-leading VFX/Digital artists, designers, animators, game creators, and designers for a day filled with inspirational talks, panels, showcases and networking.

Hollywood-level talent will be joining Crash Festival including, Industrial Light and Magic, known for their VFX work on blockbusters like Avengers Endgame, Star Wars VII, The Mandalorian, and Jurassic World Rebirth. Not to mention animators for Sony’s Spiderverse and Love Death and Robots (Netflix). Alongside gaming studios, comic creators, digital artists/designers and much more.

Thom, one of the festival organisers, relocated to Ashford several years ago from Canterbury, while collaborator Will is based in Temple Ewell. Thom has been a designer for over 20 years and has worked as a writer for various clients, most recently writing a new studio horror for Paramount Pictures. He has a fondness for horror and ghost stories, which are well-represented in Kent, especially with places like Pluckley and writers like M.R. James originating here.

Both Thom and Will were impressed with Ashford’s forward-thinking approach, which was a significant catalyst for basing Crash Festival here, they were particularly struck by the number of creative individuals with links to the screen arts in the Ashford area. After launching Silver Screams at The Ashford Cinema and seeing the eagerness of audiences for creative events, it made sense to do something broader for fans of film/screen/digital arts and for students and younger audiences eager to learn about industry access. Thom and Will believe there’s a real hunger for the creative industries in Ashford. The town boasts fantastic enterprises and stunning spots around the centre, such as St Mary’s Church, the Ashford Museum and The Ashford Designer Outlet. The town centre also offers great places for dining like Coachworks and Low Key and slightly further out, Boys Hall.

Thom believes there’s vast potential for industry investment in local screen art talent in Ashford and Crash Festival aims to harness and showcase this talent. And slowly build a regular event for local fans of the arts, hopefully helping to draw in investment opportunities.

Keeping ticket prices low is crucial, priced at just £25 for over 8 hours of panel talks, showcases, and networking with Hollywood-level talent. It’s an event not to be missed!

Saturday 28th June at The Ashford Cinema 12-7pm. Tickets available HERE.

Sponsored by Canterbury Christchurch University