Newport has officially been put forward as the host for the Eisteddfod yr Urdd 2027. It’s a massive Welsh language youth event that travels around the country every year. Newport has never hosted the celebration before, so will be a very different occasion that many are used to, but with so many global events in the past, Newport is more than ready to bring the Urdd to the city.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Newport is certainly not known as a hotbed for the Welsh language.
00:05It ranks fourth from bottom in terms of percentage of population of Welsh speakers at roughly 18%
00:10as of 2022. But Newport in a few years time is set to host one of the biggest Welsh language
00:15celebrations in Wales as the council agree plans to host the Eisteddfod yr Urdd, the youth
00:20Eisteddfod in 2027. The annual event is thought to be one of if not the largest youth festival
00:26anywhere in Europe and changes location every year, being hosted all around Wales.
00:31It brings with it a music festival called The Mice as well as thousands of young people from
00:36schools all across Wales competing in over 400 different categories from singing to dancing
00:41to musical renditions. Newport is no stranger from massive events coming to the city and has hosted
00:47some genuinely global ones in recent years. Back in 2010 it hosted the Ryder Cup, one of
00:52Galvin's biggest international events, and then hosted the NATO summit in 2014, bringing some of
00:57the most important people on the planet to South Wales in an event many people will still remember
01:02in the city. So for Newport the Urdd, as it's often known, will be another one of those massive
01:08events the city has hosted. It will be the first time Newport has ever hosted the celebration and
01:13it's over a hundred years history. So for Welsh speakers and non-Welsh speakers in Newport it
01:18will be a truly unique event. The last time Newport hosted a Welsh-language specific event of
01:23this magnitude was way back in 2004 when the full Eisteddfod came to the city, bringing almost 150,000
01:30people to the local area. Councillor Emma Sowell-Corten, Cabinet Member for Communications and Culture,
01:36said the Eisteddfod of the Urdd is one of Wales's biggest annual events, drawing in visitors from
01:41across Wales and beyond, and the council are delighted that the Urdd Gobaith Cymru are keen
01:46to bring the 2027 Eisteddfod to Newport. No specific locations where it might be hosted
01:51are official yet and that will be proposed officially to the public in September when
01:55the full plans are announced.