Preston Guild City

Events in Preston: festivals, annual events, the city centre calendar

This is the shape of the year, and no listings feed. It sets out which events return, roughly when, and where in the city they happen.

Street performers during a festival in Preston city centre
Fig. 01 — festival performance in the city centre

Events in Preston follow a calendar that is unusually easy to learn, because most of it repeats: a handful of Preston festivals and a fixed set of annual events in Preston hold the same slots year after year. A handful of annual events hold fixed points in the year, two or three festivals rotate around them, and nearly all of it uses the same three grounds: the Flag Market, Avenham Park and the streets between Fishergate and the markets.

What's on in Preston today is easier to predict than a listings feed suggests, because the fixed points repeat: the same festivals, in the same months, in the same three or four places.

This sheet is deliberately not a listings feed. It carries no dates for future events and no ticket information, because a static page that promises a live calendar stops being true within weeks and gives no sign that it has. What it does is name the recurring annual events in Preston, say where each one happens, and point at the sheet that covers it. For dates, go to the organiser.

Events in Preston at Easter and in spring

The fixed point of the Preston spring is egg rolling in Avenham Park on Easter Monday. Decorated hard boiled eggs are rolled down the slope towards the Ribble, and the custom is old enough and local enough that it draws a crowd out of all proportion to the simplicity of the activity. It is the single most characteristic thing the city does.

Spring also carries the smaller park events and the start of the outdoor programme on the Flag Market. The annual events index lists the recurring ones in order through the year.

Preston festivals through the summer

The summer Preston festivals are the busiest part of the calendar. Lancashire Encounter, first held in 2016, is the largest: a multi day arts and street performance festival that takes over the Flag Market, the Harris steps and the surrounding streets. Preston Mela is the city's South Asian arts and music festival and one of its longest running community events.

Alongside them the city runs a summer programme on the Flag Market — the sort of thing the old printed programmes called On the Flag Market — and the Guild City Games take the sporting side. The culture sheet covers the venues these use when they move indoors.

The annual events that return every year

The autumn and winter annual events are the market driven ones. Continental and farmers markets pitch on the Flag Market; the Christmas lights switch on there; and the Christmas fair runs on the markets site. Remembrance services are held at the Cenotaph in the middle of the same square.

Events in the city centre: where they actually happen

Almost every one of the large events in Preston city centre uses the Flag Market, because it is the only paved space big enough. The parks take the events that need grass and a slope. The streets between Fishergate and Church Street take the processions and the trails. Knowing those three grounds tells you where to stand for most events in Preston city centre without needing a site plan.

The exception is the Guild itself, which uses all of them at once over a week, and which is the reason the city's event infrastructure is larger than a city of Preston's size would otherwise justify.

How this calendar is organised

The calendar on this site is arranged by recurrence, never by date. An event that returns every year gets a permanent sheet under annual events describing what it is and where it happens; an event that happened once does not get one. That is why you will find a full page on egg rolling and no page for a specific concert.

It also means nothing here goes stale in the ordinary way. If you need to know whether something is on this weekend, this is the wrong kind of page and the organiser's own channel is the right one.

Questions about Events in Preston

What annual events happen in Preston?

Egg rolling in Avenham Park at Easter, the Lancashire Encounter arts festival, Preston Mela, the Guild City Games, and the continental and Christmas markets on the Flag Market. The Preston Guild itself returns every twenty years, most recently in 2012 and next in 2032.

Where do events in Preston city centre take place?

Three grounds carry nearly all of it: the Flag Market in front of the Harris, Avenham Park on the slope down to the river, and the streets between Fishergate and Church Street. Larger festivals use more than one at once.

Where are Preston's event dates published?

By the organisers. This sheet sets out the recurring shape of the year — which events happen, when in the year they fall and what kind of thing each one is — and the dated programme for any given year comes from whoever runs it.

What is egg rolling in Preston?

A local Easter Monday custom in which decorated hard boiled eggs are rolled down the slope of Avenham Park towards the Ribble. It is the most distinctive of Preston's annual events and has its own sheet.

What is the biggest festival in Preston?

Lancashire Encounter, first held in 2016, is the largest of the Preston festivals: a multi day arts and street performance programme centred on the Flag Market and the Harris steps.