The Big Top Festival is on this weekend — Saturday 2 and Sunday 3 May — across Southport town centre. It's a Bank Holiday weekend event and it's free to watch the outdoor shows, which is the main thing worth knowing upfront.
📅Big Top Festival: Saturday 2 May and Sunday 3 May 2026. Town centre, Southport. Free outdoor performances. Some indoor shows are ticketed — see southport2026.com for the full programme.
Who's Performing
Two companies: Circa, an Australian physical theatre company with a serious international reputation, and Gandini Juggling, a UK company that's been making contemporary circus work since the 1990s. Neither of these is a standard fairground act. Circa in particular does things with the human body that are genuinely worth watching. If you've got kids who've never seen professional circus performance, this weekend is worth prioritising.
The outdoor performances are the ones you can just turn up for. The indoor ticketed shows are a more intimate, structured experience — shorter runs, fixed seating, and more demanding work. Both are worth seeing if you can.
Where and When
The outdoor performances are across the town centre. Lord Street is the main spine. Shows run through the day on both Saturday and Sunday — exact timings are on the southport2026.com site and worth checking beforehand because the schedule shifts. Don't just turn up and expect to find it immediately; know which part of town you're heading to.
Practical Bits
- →Parking: Marine Drive fills early on Bank Holiday weekends. Victoria Road car park (PR8 2LX) is the better option if you're arriving late morning.
- →Food: Southport Market on Market Street is a two-minute walk from most of the action and good for a proper lunch.
- →Dogs: outdoor events in the town centre are fine with dogs on leads. Frank has been to similar things before and managed without incident.
- →Kids: yes. This is a genuinely good family day out. Younger children respond well to Gandini Juggling; Circa is better for older kids who can follow a sustained performance.
Is It Worth Going?
It's a Bank Holiday weekend, it's free, and the acts are good. Yes. If you're in Southport this weekend and you don't go, you'll regret it when people are talking about it on Monday. The Open 2026 is getting most of the attention this summer but the Big Top Festival is the thing happening right now.
Full events calendar for Southport 2026:
Southport Events 2026 →Terry
Chief Editor, SouthportGuide.co.uk. Lives in Churchtown with his wife,
four kids, and Frank the bulldog.
