Albion Fairs was the general name for the second wave of East Anglian Fairs, running from 1978 until 1982. There were further fairs in the same tradition most years until the end of the 1980s.
The East Anglian Fairs began with the Barsham Medieval Faire in 1972, and developed into a significant feature of rural counterculture in Britain, drawing on aspects of pop festival culture, the reinvention of traditional rural or nomadic seasonal gatherings, and a back-to-the-land early green ethos. The voluntary organisers worked under the name of the East Anglian Arts Trust (EAAT). Barsham Faire ran annually on the August Bank Holiday until 1976. In 1976, EAAT revived the Bungay May Horse Fair, which was also held in 1977. An ad hoc group of fair organisers and crew participated in the Eye Show in August 1977. This led to the formation, in the winter of 1977/1978, of Albion Fairs.
Many London and East Anglian bands and theatre groups played at these fairs, among them The Papers, who released a live album (live at Thornham Magna) in 1981, capturing the atmosphere of the fairs. They played as the headline act at Barsham, Cromer and many other events, as well as being well known on the London clubs circuit.
The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Albion Fairs”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence.
Albion Fairs is recorded in open cultural data. The structured record cited below does not describe the practice, and this entry has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. 1
The source record links this tradition to 1 external register, which can be verified through the citation. 1