A Tavistock musician has teamed up with a local business owner to bring a new, one of a kind, acoustic performance evening to the town.

Pete Tregaskis, creator of the Tavi Circle who also helps to run the open mic nights at the Stannary Arms, recently approached Steve Lewington, owner of Too Hoppy, to create a unique and unplugged event unlike any other musical evening in Tavistock.

The aim of the new event, entitled ‘All Folky Unplugged’, is to build a small musical community, gathering together and playing acoustic in the bar space to a small crowd where all are welcome, with no technology or amplifiers, simply using voices and a range of musical instruments which do not need to be plugged in such as guitar, ukulele, mandolin, violin, cello, accordion, harp, harmonica or the drums.

Pete said: ‘This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while now.

‘Open mic nights are very common these days but there are people out there who prefer to play in a folk or folk club setting and I felt we needed a local event to cater for that. No one was doing a folk kind of thing, cafe style where people play to a small crowd.

‘We needed to find a suitable performance space and Too Hoppy seemed like the ideal place. Steve has been very proactive in helping out people. The idea is that people just turn up. There’s no plug in, it’s completely organic and acoustic. We wish to create a community vibe in an intimate space.’

It is also hoped that the new All Folky Unplugged event can be used as a springboard to relaunch the Tavistock Circle, which Pete created in October of last year.

The Circle is a musical community initiative designed to welcome new artists of all ages and abilities to share their material for the first time, providing them a platform to perform amongst other local musicians and songwriters.

When first announced, the Circle had strong initial interest, prompting plans for its first meeting to be brought forward from the New Year to that November.

Pete has kept in touch with those who turned out, many of whom continue to frequent the open mic nights at the Stannary Arms which run on the first Sunday of every month – the most recent one having taken place last Sunday.

Pete said: ‘We’d really like to see a good turnout to this event. We’ve had positive interest so far both in the town and from nearby places such as Horrabridge and Plymouth, with word having spread through the open mic night crowd too.

All anyone who would like to come along needs to do is literally just turn up, bring friends and food too if they wish.’

The event will run fornightly from April 12, taking place on Wednesdays from 7pm to 9pm at Too Hoopy, situated on Brook Street, on the following dates: April 12 and 26, May 10 and 24 and June 7 and 21. All are welcome to attend and/or perform.