York Lesbian Arts Festival 2013, York Guidhall, August 10

“This festival is an entirely new entity, not to be confused with any previous lesbian and gay festivals in York,” says producer Mei Wilshire, who is running the one-day event from her office in the York Council for Voluntary Services Centre in Priory Street.

“It’s a fresh initiative that’s also incorporating male art and heterosexuality to promote equality and space for all to prosper. I believe that in order to create equality, you should incorporate everybody rather than making it awkward for others to come along.

“The festival is all about focusing on equality for all people and York is a brilliant place to do that because it’s a very important city for welcoming new ideas. We’re adding to York’s richness and history as our festival gives York a new look, a new approach, and it opens the city up to more people. It gives a wonderful message outside York that it’s open to all.”

“We’ve had people from all around the world viewing the video: from Canada, Uganda, Texas, Iran,” says Mei. “And we’ve had international languages going on to Facebook, leaving messages saying, ‘this is great; we need a festival like this for equality’.

“It’s wonderful to have that input and the fact that people are visiting Facebook and the website creates an awareness that something important is being created in York.”

Much closer to home, Mei is delighted to have gained the support of City of York Council. “The council is giving a small grant towards marketing the event and helping me with media contacts through working with Helen Rich and Councillor Sonja Crisp,” she says.

Mei spoke to potential festival participants before settling on a summer date for the event. “Summertime is the best time for families,” she says.

“I also had to think about where to host the festival and the Guildhall was always my preference: a 15th century building incorporating 21st century art.

“I wanted an historic place in which to reflect this year’s performers and artists and to be a wonderful reflection of York today and I hope that, as the producer, I’ve done that.”

The festival will be opened at 10am by Councillor Sonja Crisp, cabinet member for culture, leisure and tourism. This will be followed at 10.20am by Milton Keynes lesbian theatre company AlleyWay Theatre’s The Tempest Within, an all-female reinterpretation of The Tempest.

Part performance, part installation, it focuses on modern parent/child relationships while exploring sexuality, possession, death and the psychological trauma of isolation.

“AlleyWay specialise in performing Shakespeare’s plays from a female perspective,” says Mei. “It will be very interesting to see The Tempest from a completely different angle, re-enacting the play in a new light.”

By profession, Geoff Beacon is the chairman of York information technology company Beacon International, but you will find him on the York Lesbian Arts Festival stage at 11am. “In his spare time he writes poetry of a very political nature and so he’ll be reading from his latest collection, Tuesday Night Again,” says Mei.

After an 11.25am talk on Gender & Sexuality by a University of York lecturer (whose name is yet to be confirmed), Ellen Dean, executive producer at Win Shields Productions, lesbian romantic thriller author, publisher, screenwriter and radio presenter, will give a talk at 12 noon.

Ellen will discuss the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) OutSpoken Project, young people’s needs and her latest book.

Post-lunch, Fiona Cooper, gay activist, novelist, comedian and Godmother To The Fairies columnist for the Pink Paper will perform Prejudice And Pride, her celebration of LGBT life over the past 50 years, at 12.30pm.

Photographer and visual artist Ruth Collet combines recording the life of Scarborough’s South Bay and landscapes in tiny detail on camera with her work as the artist known as Tripod. At 1.10pm she will present Tripod Tales, her stories of outsiders, such as the dragon woman who meets her match in the supermarket and Mary Green, Sandwich Queen, who spreads her opinions thick on the white sliced.

Iranian poet Elham Malekpoor Arashlu, LGBT and human rights activist and researcher at the University of York, will give a talk and poetry reading at 1.30pm.Elham, who graduated in agricultural engineering and Persian literature, has published many books "with and without the legal permission of the Iranian governmental authorities".

"I am in the minority minority minority because I’m a semi-blind gay woman writer who works in the field of human rights, where I particularly deal with child labour and queer rights,” she says.

Mei adds: “Hopefully this festival will give Elham a platform to speak about the situation in her country faced by not women but minority groups.”

The international exhibition The Art Of Zhen, Shan, Ren (Truth, Compassion, Tolerance) by persecuted Falun Gong artists from China will be accompanied by a talk at 2pm. The paintings depict “an inner spiritual life and an outer human rights tragedy”.

The Buckeneers will play a set of Beatles covers at 2.20pm and further additions will be made to the festival line-up. “I’m updating the website every day with new artists and new information,” says Mei.

“I’ve just added the Cumberland-born actor and playwright Matthew Wignall, who studied English Literature at the University of York and has written several plays. He’ll be putting on his play Goldfish Bowl, a 15-minute performance directed by him.”

Mei is thrilled at the festival’s progress and impact “I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their involvement because it’s created a oneness in York and the world, and I’ve never had this kind of response before,” she says.

Festival tickets can be bought on the day at £10, concessions £5. For more information, visit yorklesbianartsfestival2013.co.uk