An annual spring carnival, held by a popular language initiative, is to be held online this year.

Cafe Lingo have announced that its seasonal gathering, Spring Fest, is to be held over a mass Zoom meeting, rather than the usual day of music, food and multilingual festivities held at the Loch Promenade church in Douglas.

The organisers have put together a full programme of acts and events for Spring Fest which will take place online on Saturday, February 13, from 10.30am to 12.30pm.

Among the acts and events taking part will be traditional music from Manx musician Paul Rogers and songs from local singers Helen Morrison and David Castro. Anna Montemurro will present a video on the importance of carnival in her native Italy.

Marcela and Heikke Koistinen, from Peru and Finland respectively, will also take part and swing dance instructor Natasha Brown will give a demonstration before encouraging guests to have a go themselves.

Top chef Claire Duke will also give a demonstration of cookery.

Organiser Karen Norton said that the recent lockdown threw up to many uncertainties.

’I had already started to organise Spring Fest at the start of the second lockdown and, at the time, we really didn’t know where we would be at the time of the event,’ said Karen.

’So we decided we would press on with an online event, regardless of what may happen.

’We have been keeping Cafe Lingo going over Zoom throughout the past year, ever since the first lockdown. We had moved back to holding face-to-face classes in September, and obviously we went straight back to Zoom groups once the second lockdown started.

’It’s also something we thought would be best, as we deal with a lot of people who are newly-arrived to the island.

’In normal circumstances they would come to us having just arrived in the island but in this case they may be just out of isolation or whatever, so we thought it would best for people’s own peace of mind that we should still stay on the safe side.

’It is such a popular event that we were very keen for it still to go ahead and despite being online, Spring Fest is still open to everyone, but we want to make sure we do our best to keep everyone safe.

’We’re looking forward to next year as we want to return bigger and better than before.’

More details on Spring Fest are available by phoning Karen on 458340.