Eisteddfod 2017 on ITV Cymru Wales

ITV Cymru Wales will be broadcasting from the National Eisteddfod in Anglesey next week with two special programmes and nightly news reports on Wales At Six.

Presenters Carole Green and Siôn Jenkins, and reporter Jessica Main, will be on the Maes throughout the week meeting the participants, organisers and visitors to Wales' premier cultural festival.

Two half-hour programmes under the banner Eisteddfod 2017 will be shown on Monday, August 7 and on Friday, August 11 both at 8pm, on ITV Wales.

Monday's scene-setting programme will be looking at the preparations for the Eisteddfod, from the choirs, dancers and performers of all ages in rehearsal, to the arts and crafts competitors preparing their entries, to the young revellers preparing to descend on Maes B.

And in a change of mood, Carole Green visits Birkenhead Park where the National Eisteddfod was staged 100 years ago. In 1917, a young poet known as Hedd Wyn posthumously won the Bard's Chair just weeks after he, along with thousands of other British soldiers, was killed at Passchendaele. Carole also reports from Belgium on how the centenary of Hedd Wyn’s death was commemorated where he fell in Flanders.

Friday's programme features a comprehensive round-up of Eisteddfod week in and around the main pavilion, including the Crowning and Chairing of the Bard ceremonies, plus interviews with winners and participants across a range of competitions. We'll also be reporting on the many other cultural activities taking place around the Maes.

The team will also be reporting live into Wales At Six with news, interviews and features.

Eisteddfod 2017: Monday 7 August and Friday 11 August, 8pm, ITV Cymru Wales

Wales At Six: Mon to Friday, 6pm

Also throughout Eisteddfod week, journalists from ITV Cymru Wales' Y Byd Ar Bedwar current affairs programme will be teaming up with Cardiff University media students and giving them the opportunity to work alongside professional journalists for a digital news service covering the festival.

The “Llais y Maes” (“Voice of the Maes”) initiative is being led by Cardiff University’s School of Journalism, Media & Cultural Studies (JOMEC) in partnership with ITV Cymru Wales, S4C and the National Eisteddfod.

The ITV Cymru Wales team will be helping students to learn and practise new skills, establish contacts and gain insights into the life of a working journalist covering a major cultural event.