IVFDF

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The Inter-Varsity Folk Dance Festival.

A weekend-long student dance festival run by a different university each year.

IVFDF - the Inter-Varsity Folk Dance Festival

- is the country's longest continually running folk festival (dating back to 1951!) and is organised every year by a different university folk society. While it is aimed at and generally run by students, everyone, student or not, is welcome to this weekend of fun, sleep deprivation, and dancing your socks off!

Both absolute beginners and seasoned dancers are welcome; with a full programme of daytime workshops ranging from absolute dance basics to more advanced techniques in all styles, there is always something to help everyone find their footing. Plus, IVFDF is a great place to make friends so don't be shy about coming along if you're new to dancing! Being a student-run event, IVFDF aims to be as affordable as possible, and most people indoor camp for the festival, but you can also sort out your own accommodation if you prefer.

If too much dancing tires you out, there are usually some less energetic workshops, and we also often have a craft room! You can also spend time browsing some of the stalls, catching up with folky friends, watching the Morris tour or just exploring Sheffield.

Sheffield IVFDF 2022 will be the 10th IVFDF to be held in Sheffield and the first to be run by Sheffield University Morris. We and the Morris Penguins are so excited to welcome you to the Steel City for ceilidhs, contras, Playford, balfolk dancing, a Morris tour, workshops and much more!

We expect to be the first major UK folk dance event held since the Covid-19 pandemic, so while we're really excited to get back to dancing providing it's safe, we also completely understand that not everyone may feel fully comfortable with it yet. To this end, we're aiming to offer livestreaming for many of our events so that they can be experienced remotely. Anyone who falls ill before the festival will be asked not to attend but will have their ticket refunded and replaced with an online ticket.

See our Covid-19 Policy here.

Want to learn more about IVFDF?

Visit the IVFDF Central website for more information.

Want to get more involved in IVFDF?

There are plenty of opportunities to volunteer, by stewarding (please steward! We love stewards), running a workshop, calling at the Survivor's Ceilidh or performing in the Display Ceilidh or Morris Tour. If you're interested in learning more about how IVFDF is run, come to the Annual Reps Meeting at the festival, where the future of the next two IVFDFs will be decided by voting representatives from university folk societies.

Sheffield IVFDF 2022 aims to be as inclusive and accessible as possible. We'll have gender-free calling at all of our events (which has been the standard for IVFDF since 2018), and we have an accessibility statement which we keep updated. All the dancing/workshop venues and many of the sleeping venues so far are wheelchair accessible and we plan to publish detailed accessibility information for all of them. If you have any questions or concerns about accessibility or inclusivity, or have any particular requirements, we'd love to hear from you - please get in touch with us.