The festival, now in its tenth year celebrates all aspects of traditional maritime art, particularly music. Annually a great number of  singers and shanty groups meet at concerts and sessions throughout 'Captain Cook Country' and these events usually span the annual Captain Cook Birthday Celebrations during the last week of October.. The festival has held events in Middlesbrough (close to Cook's birthplace), Marske by Sea ( where Cooks father is buried) in Staithes ( where young James Cook worked as a grocers apprentice) and where he first had any direct experience with the maritime world. The festival also includes events in picturesque and historic Robin Hoods Bay which Cook undoubtedly knew well and of course Whitby,  historic maritime centre and place of Cooks apprenticeship under Thomas Walker.