Bollington Festival 2026: Everything You Need To Know
The Bollington Festival 2026 is going to be ONE to remember, with a fantastic lineup of events running from Friday 15th May to Bank Holiday Monday 25th May. The great mix of entertainment, feels exactly what a community festival should be. Not corporate, not built for Instagram but fun times, living in the moment with partners, friends and family!
Historically, the festival holds fond memories for generations of residents who’ve grown up in Bollington. The ‘Bollington Festival’ is a registered charity, with 4 trustees and over 70 volunteers. Events of this scale require years of fundraising and organisation behind the scenes, a true example of real community spirit!
We’ve listed the key events which have been confirmed so far! More details are available on the official website listed below, there might changes and additions made to events happening leading up the festival.
Key Events at a Glance
- Friday, May 15th: Festival opens with Arts Centre exhibitions and Caffl Welsh dance night (£10)
- Saturday, May 16th: Marc Makes Comics – Bollington Arts Centre – two workshops 11am / 2.30pm (£7.50)
- Saturday, May 16th: Bolly Comedy Club – Bollington Arts Centre 8pm to 10.30pm
- Saturday, May 16th: Bollington Festival Choir 4pm to 6pm (£6)
- Sunday, May 17th: Sunday Morning Chamber Music 10.30am to 12.25pm (£12/£6/ £1)
- Sunday, May 17th: Sunday Lane’s Dance School – Bollington Arts Centre 2.30pm to 3.30pm (FREE)
- Sunday, May 17th: Jazz Night – Bollington Arts Centre 7.30pm to 10pm (£13)
- Monday, May 18th – 21st May: Well Dressing Petalling
- Monday, May 18th: Festival Folk Night – Bollington Arts Centre 7pm to 10pm (£7)
- Tuesday, May 19th: Sunny Ormonde – Bollington Arts Centre £7.30pm to 9.20pm (£12.50)
- Wednesday, May 20th: Richard Lock Science Talk – Bollington Arts Centre 8pm to 9pm (FREE)
- Thursday, May 21st: Screaming Beavers – Bollington Recreation Ground 8pm to 9.45pm (£22)
- Friday, May 22nd: Ultimate Coldplay – Bollington Recreation Ground 8pm to 9.15pm (£27)
- Friday May 22nd to May 30th: Well Dressing Displays (FREE)
- Saturday May 23rd: Tennis At The Rec Tennis Courts (Junior & Parents Sessions) (Free Subject To Booking)
- Saturday May 23rd: Orlyk Ukrainian Dance Ensemble – Bollington Recreation Ground 11am to 12pm (FREE)
- Saturday May 23rd: Karamba – Bollington Recreation Grounds 1pm – 1.45pm (FREE)
- Saturday May 23rd: Bollington Brass Band – Bollington Recreation Ground – 2.30pm to 3.30pm
- Saturday May 23rd: Lostock Ukes – Bollington Recreation Ground 4.15pm 5.15pm
- Saturday, May 23rd: Oasish – Bollington Recreation Ground 8pm to 9.30pm (£27)
- Sunday, May 24th:Â Tennis At The Rec Tennis Courts (Adult Only Sessions)Â – (Free Subject To Booking)
- Sunday May 24th: Geronimo – Bollington Recreation Ground 10.30am to 11.30am (FREE)
- Sunday May 24th: Who’s Frank? – Bollington Recreation Ground 12.30pm to 1.30pm (FREE)
- Sunday May 24th: Beer And Hymns – Bollington Recreation Ground 2pm to 2.30pm (FREE)
- Sunday May 24th: Dead Wells – Bollington Recreation Ground 3.30pm to 4.30pm (FREE)
- Sunday May 24th: Uncle Pleb’s Singaround On The Rec – 4.45pm to 6.15pm (FREE)
- Sunday, May 24th: Party @ the Rec featuring Zed Bias – 7pm to 10pm (£20)
- Monday May 25th: Bollington Fire Engine – Bollington Recreation Ground Daytime (FREE)
- Monday May 25th: Bollington Balloons – Bollington Recreation Ground (10am to 12pm) & (1pm to 3pm) FREE
- Monday May 25th: Rock Choir – Bollington Recreation Ground – 10.30pm to 11.30pm (FREE)
- Monday May 25th: Dog Show – Bollington Recreation Ground – 11am to 1pm (FREE)
- Monday May 25th: The Children’s Potting Table – Bollington Recreation Ground 11am to 3pm (FREE)
- Monday May 25th: Stilt-Walking Cricketers – Bollington Recreation Ground 3 x 30 Minute walkabouts 11am, 1pm & 3pm (FREE)
- Monday May 25th: Ballerinas – Bollington Recreation Ground 2 x 30 minute sessions 11.30am & 3.45pm (FREE)
- Monday May 25th: Acoustibots – Bollington Recreation Ground 12.30pm to 1.30pm (FREE)
- Monday May 25th: Flock – Bollington Recreation Ground 2 x 30 munite acts 12.45pm & 2pm (FREE)
- Monday May 25th: Bolly Bubbles – Bollington Recreation Ground 1pm to 3pm (FREE)
- Monday May 25th: Dr Joe’s Medicine Show On The Rec 2.30pm to 3.45pm (FREE)
- Monday May 25th: (FESTIVAL FINALE) ABBA Fever – Bollington Creation Ground at 4pm to 5.15pm (FREE)
DJ Nick Wright and the Canalside Community Radio crew will be at the Bollington Recreation Ground daily from Thursday 21st May to Monday 25th May, keeping the crowds dancing. Make sure you stop to say hello, Nick is always happy to play a few requests!
Purchasing Tickets
In an era where a concert ticket can cost as much as a monthly car payment, everything is either free or refreshingly affordable. Tickets for the individual paid events can be purchased via their official website – https://bollingtonfestival.org.uk/events/category/paid-event/
A Prescription For Community Spirit
To appreciate why this festival still matters, it helps to go back to the start. It was founded in 1964 by local GP Dr. John Coope MBE, who had the fairly radical idea that a healthy town needed more than prescriptions and waiting rooms. People, in his view, were better off when they were making things, singing things, watching things and generally getting involved.
More than 60 years later, that inspiration has held up remarkably well. It’s a true credit to the Bollington Community for keeping the traditional alive. Many festival like this across the Country, fizzle out with volunteer fatigue!
The Main Event: Family Fun Day at the Rec
If one date is getting the thick red circle treatment on our calendar, it’s Bank Holiday Monday, May 25th. That’s when the Recreation Ground, better known locally as “The Rec”, becomes the centre of festival life for the Family Fun Day.
It’s a free event, which already feels like a minor miracle in 2026, and ticks all the boxes for a properly good Bank Holiday outing: entertainment, food, families settling in for the day and plenty happening leading up to the headline music. The programme includes the Bollington Festival Dog Show, stilt-walking cricketers, Dr Joe’s Medicine Show and more, a perfect mix which makes a memorable festival. Sunshine would be a cherry on the cake but wouldn’t stop us all dancing!
The festival closes with ABBA Fever at 4pm (also free), which feels like a perfect finish to get everyone on their feet dancing! A Bank Holiday afternoon, in the Happy Valley with a picnic blanket and a crowd singing along to ABBA sounds the best way to spend an extra day off work!
Venues
Not everything happens out on the Rec. A good chunk of the festival’s charm takes place at the Bollington Arts Centre, where the programme gets a bit more intimate without losing any character.
For The Archers fans, Sunny Ormonde is booked in for Tuesday, May 19th at £12.50. Best known as Lilian Bellamy, she’s exactly the sort of booking that suits a festival like this: familiar, witty and likely to send people home with a few good stories.
Then there’s Saturday, May 16th, which brings the Bolly Comedy Club and the Bollington Festival Choir. It’s quite a neat snapshot of the wider festival really: one minute stand-up, the next choral music, with nobody seeming especially bothered by the jump. Add in the Festival Orchestra and a broader programme covering dance, comedy, rock, jazz, ukuleles, indie bluegrass, folk and brass, and it’s clear this isn’t a one-lane event. It’s more of a cheerful, organised sprawl.
The Tradition of Well Dressing
Combining the Well Dressings and Bollington Festival 2026 is a great collaboration. Joining together two local historical traditions under the one community event.
For anyone who hasn’t seen one up close, well dressing is exactly the kind of painstaking community craft that makes people stop and stare. Flower petals, seeds, moss and leaves are pressed into wet clay to create large, intricate pictures. It’s delicate work, faintly obsessive, and very impressive once the full thing comes together.
From May 22nd to May 30th, the displays will be at The Greg Fountain Well Dressing at Bollington Cross and The Memorial Gardens Well Dressing near the War Memorial. Before that, the “petalling” runs from May 17th to May 21st, and that’s worth joining in with.
You can snag your tickets directly from the official website at bollingtonfestival.org.uk.Â
The Main Venues: The two primary hubs are the Bollington Arts Centre on Palmerston Street and the Recreation Ground off Adlington Road.
If you’re coming from Macclesfield or further afield, parking in Bollington can be… let’s call it “challenging “. The town wasn’t exactly built with 21st-century traffic in mind, you may just need to park a short stroll away.
- The bus is an option (the 10 or 10A ). Check time tables as it’s a bank holiday weekend.
- Better yet, walk the Middlewood Way or the Canal path. It’s a lovely stroll from Macclesfield and saves you the stress of finding a spot for the car. Then get a taxi home avoiding staggering back in the dark after a few drinks!
- Local taxi firms including Silvertown or Lynx will also have plenty of cars free. With it being a bank holiday weekend – booking in advance might be a good idea!
Not To be Missed!
Remember, it not an annual event. That makes the Bollington Festival, more special and something to really appreciate. The music, the Well Dressings, the comedy, the family weekend, the gloriously daft moments like stilt-walking cricketers: none of it happens by accident, and none of it feels like a generic festival template.
After more than 60 years, that local identity is still part of its character. It still has headline nights, busy crowds and enough variety to keep different generations interested, while staying rooted as a community event.
So whether the main attraction is Ultimate Coldplay, Oasish, Screaming Beavers, Zed Bias, Sunny Ormonde, ABBA Fever, the Dog Show, or simply a slow wander round the well dressings, there’s a good case for making time for it. The Happy Valley still knows how to put on a proper do.
The biggest dilemma for the staff at the ‘The Maxonian’, is the clash of events on Saturday 23rd May with the ‘Macclesfield In May’ festival! You can be sure we’ll be enjoying the best of both events leading up to bank holiday weekend!
Research Sources:
- Bollington Well Dressing Official Schedule 2026
- History of the Bollington Festival – Dr. John Coope Archives
- Bollington Festival Players Production Calendar
- The Bridgend Centre Walking Festival Listings
- Official Bollington Festival 2026 Program of Events
