PACK a picnic, gather friends and family and head to Salisbury's Cathedral Close to dance the night away at the festival's Latin American style fiesta, on Saturday, June 9.

This exciting and vibrant event is also an opportunity to show off your salsa skills, especially if you have been taking part in one or more of the festival's Salisbury Salsa dance workshops, as dance, dance, dance is definitely one of this event's highlights.

To help you get your dancing shoes on, Tex-Mex band Los Pacaminos, led by British singer Paul Young, will be playing, as well as Papa Noel's 11 piece Afro-Cuban band. Tex-Mex music, as the name suggests, is a mixture of Mexican style music and the country and blues sounds of Texas, so expect plenty of Cajun and Zydeco fuelled sounds.

Legendary guitarist Papa Noel has played with the cream of Congolese rumba bands and you can expect a sizzling combination of West African beats, Cuban song and salsa from this great band.

If the dancing gets too much, you can relax to the sounds of Brazilian choir, Nossa Voz, or watch in awe at the performance on stilts of Danza Antigua, based on the Mexican Day of the Dead' festival.

There will be lots for children to do at the festival fiesta, from making Mexican style masks and feathered Brazilian style headdresses to joining in the salsa beats.

Fiestas sadly have to come to an end and the evening will finish when the night sky fills with fireworks over the Cathedral spire.

  • Salisbury Journal has teamed up with Salisbury International Arts Festival to offer two family tickets, for the festival fiesta. To qualify for a family ticket, the group must include at least one adult and one child, and is for up to four people.

The first two names out of the hat by the closing date of Thursday, May 17 will be the lucky winners.

Simply put your name and address on a postcard (and e-mail if you want to be contacted by the festival) to: Marketing@SalisburyFestival, 87 Crane Street, Salisbury, SP1 2PU.