Festival Info
The Earlsdon Festival is Coventry's biggest street festival and (in non-covid times) takes place on the May Day bank holiday Monday.
Earlsdon Street is closed to traffic and has 60+ market stalls, street food vendors and performance stages that complement the wonderful local food & drink establishments and shops that open on the big day.
Earlsdon Primary School playground hosts up to 20 table-top stalls, bouncy castles, face painters and refreshment sellers as well has having activities for young festival goers.
The festival typically attracts an overall footfall of around 20,000 people, with 7,000 visitors on site during the busiest times of the day. It is a family friendly festival. The entertainment comes from musicians (bands and solo artists), dancers, theatre groups, exercise classes, sports clubs and of course morris dancers! Costumers and mascots make appearances too, as does a Fire Engine from WMFS which is always a big hit with children.
The above sites are organised by a small committee of unpaid volunteers led by James Whateley. Funding for the festival comes from local businesses who generously sponsor the event. Costs that need to be met include road closure fees, website, public liability insurance, hire of market stalls / marquees / portaloos / barriers etc. The festival receives no funding from Coventry City Council and is independent of it.
When we are next able to safely stage a festival, information about how to apply for stalls and street food concessions will be posted nearer the time. Stalls on Earlsdon Street are fully covered professional market stalls inclusive of a table. Stalls at Earlsdon School are bring-your-own table top stalls which are located under cover.
The application process is usually done through an electronic form. Once the application period has closed, our dedicated Stalls Team will decide who has been successful. It is NOT 'first come, first served' and our team always endeavours to be fair and build a balanced selection of stalls and food concessions.
Details of how to apply for a Performance Stage slot will also be posted nearer the time. The festival does NOT pay performers.
The festival usually takes place from 10.30am to 4pm, with road closures in place for Earlsdon Street and surrounding streets from 6am - 6pm.
Many other venues across Earlsdon also take part, organising their own celebrations. These usually include Earlsdon Methodist Church, St Barbara's Church, Criterion Theatre, Earlsdon Carnegie Community Library, Coventry Resource Centre for the Blind and The Albany Club. As well as having activities, exhibitions and offering refreshments, many of these venues also have stalls selling various wares.
Earlsdon Open Gardens, where a number of wonderful displays of flora and fauna are available for the public to view for a small fee (donated to charity) normally also takes place at the same time as the festival.
The festival is usually an annual event, but due to the government moving the May Day holiday to a Friday in 2020 ( to commemorate the 75th anniversary of V.E. Day ) we had already cancelled the 2020 festival. A Friday festival would have posed more security and other issues for us and was a risk we were not prepared to take. The outbreak of Coronavirus would have meant 2020 would have been cancelled even if we had organised it so when it is safe to do so. Covid-19 has put paid to the 2021 festival in its regular format (stalls, live entertainment on May Day) so hopefully we will be back bigger and better than ever - hopefully in 2022 when Coventry will be closing its UK City of Culture celebrations.
The festival's email address is: