Success Story:

Leicester Riverside Festival

Background

Leicester’s Riverside Festival is the city’s largest free festival, held every year on the first weekend in June. There are a large range of family-friendly activities, food and of course music over five different sites; the River Soar, Bede Park, Western Boulevard, Castle Gardens and the De Montfort University Campus.

First held in 1997 on a Sunday afternoon, almost 30 years on it has grown significantly into one of Leicester’s largest free outdoor events and biggest arts festival in the sub-region, attracting audiences between 60,000 – 70,000 in recent years.

For Riverside’s 27th anniversary in Leicester, we spent some time with the Festival and Events team at Leicester City Council to gain an insight into what goes into organising a festival of this scale and how it continues to draw in thousands of visitors each summer.

Photo credits: Beth Walsh Photography

Watch the first part of our success story with Leicester’s Riverside Festival to see how it is organised.

In conversation with Leicester City Council

Graham Callister

Head of Festivals, Events & Cultural Policy

For me it’s about planning and financial planning so we are always looking at how we can pull in more resources ultimately to make it a better, bigger experience for audiences but also bringing lots more artists to the event as well.”

Graham Callister, Head of Festivals, Events & Cultural Policy

Putting on a festival of any kind takes a lot of planning, but organising an inner-city festival comes with its own set of challenges.  Could you talk us through some of the planning that is involved, and how far ahead that starts? 

“One of my roles really when the festival’s here is that I walk around the site and I look at the ways that we can improve the festival experience for people coming to Riverside.”

Photo credits: Beth Walsh Photography

A festival of this size obviously has a lot of external partners involved. Can you tell us more about the organisations consulted during planning, and how you bring them together to work cohesively?

“Putting a festival like Riverside together isn’t just the City Council alone, we work with multiple partners to deliver this event, one of which is De Montfort University, a massively important partner for the expansion of Riverside Festival which we’ve moved into the campus over recent years. We also work with multiple emergency blue-light services so police, fire etc., to make sure in the planning stages before we even get to the festival, it’s a safely planned event for everybody. But then there’s all the different people that come here on the day – the multiple arts organisations, the heritage organisations, the community groups that come here and have their stalls as well so it’s multi-layered and I think that that’s what brings the richness to Riverside as a festival, is having all those different people looking forward to the festival and contributing towards it.”

Kellie Bugby

Festivals & Events Senior Officer

When you’re running an event of this size, you do need multiple licenses to make sure that it’s a safe event for people.”

Kellie Bugby, Festivals & Events Senior Officer

TheMusicLicence covers the music across the festival areas, but what else do you need in place, from a licensing point of view, to run an event like Riverside?

“We have TheMusicLicence through PPL PRS, we also have to have a rival markets licence. We have a TEN licence (Temporary Event Notice) which is for the bars and then we have to get licences from the Canal & River Trust to use the waterways as well.”

There’s a fantastic range of food on offer across both days of the festival. Could you talk us through what’s involved in planning this, and whether you prioritise local providers or those with a positive ecological practice to reduce the carbon footprint?

“Choosing the traders and the bars is quite a complex process. We don’t just pick and choose which ones we want; we have to grade each application that comes in. We grade them on what the prices are for the public, the tender price that they’re offering and how the store looks and how it’s going to look on site.

This year we’ve tried to focus in on the sustainability of them, making sure that traders are locally based, that they offer a healthy food choice alongside all their other menu items and that they offer smaller menu sizes for children. We do have a lot of applications come through so we do have to make sure that the process is done correctly.”

Photo credits: Beth Walsh Photography

One of the highlights of the weekend is the Dragonboat Race, could you talk us through the organisation of this? Who can take part and how? 

“PROSTaid, which is a Leicester-based charity get involved by organizing a dragon boat race over the Sunday. It’s a spectacular part of the programming to have over the weekend. People would have to sign up and pay to be a part of the dragon boat and that’s how PROSTaid earn money for their charity during that weekend. On the dragon boat we usually have teams of between 10 to 12, and they’ll be competing throughout the whole day on Sunday.”

Chris Hackett

Festival & Events Manager

We have multi-agency planning meetings which go into the event, we have meetings with blue-light services, Police, East Midlands Ambulance Service, Leicester Fire and Rescue, and our Highways Team, so there’s a huge amount of planning.”

Chris Hackett, Festival & Events Manager

Around 60,000 people are expected to attend Riverside Festival this year. What steps are put in place with police and anti-terrorism organisations to ensure everyone is kept safe over the festival weekend? 

“We work really closely with the Police, especially the Counter Terrorism Unit as well so we are always planning on different ways to make sure we keep people safe at the event but also make it enjoyable as well, obviously that’s the main aspect for us.”

Can you tell us about the clean-up effort once the event is over? How long does it take to clean up once the festival has come to a close? How many people are needed to help with the clean-up effort?  

“A lot of it comes from the planning before, during and after the event so we have operatives that are actually working on site during the event so it’s not so much of a clean-up operation after the event. We have 10-15 members of staff that will be going round cleaning the different areas that we use, the city council will be providing the bins for that as well so we’ll recycle as much as we can … we try to keep on top of it as the event goes along so people are in a nice clean environment.”

Photo credits: Beth Walsh Photography

How long does it take for the festival to be built, set up and taken down? Does the council have an internal events team or are there external events organisers that the Council employs that help with that? 

“The council have an internal events team … so most of the planning comes internally through us, however we do work with a lot of different contractors on the day so staging contractors, security, people providing PA’s, it’s a group effort. The actual build phase we try to generally do most of it on the Saturday so the first day of the event. Some of the larger build will take place on the Friday [before] and then usually 95% [of it is taken down] by the Sunday evening so actually it’s quite a condensed build.”

Watch the second part of our success story to find out more about the artists, activities and events at the 2026 Festival:

Shenèse Dyer-Barzey

Festivals & Events Assistant

It’s important for us to give those young people the opportunity to perform to wider than just their families and friends. ”

Shenèse Dyer-Barzey, Festivals & Events Assistant

You are mainly involved in the music side of the festival, which artists can we expect to see on the main stage this year and how do you decide who performs on the main stage?  Is there a selection process, and who is involved in that? 

“This year we have a range of artists on the main stage, predominantly we have a showcase of different collectives from the Leicester Music Board and then in between those spaces we have got some local talent that we are looking forward to showcasing. The decision for who gets to perform at the main stage is made predominantly by our partners within Leicester Music Board, as well as us, who support with local enquiries from the community.”

Photo credits: Beth Walsh Photography

You work with Leics Make Music to showcase some of Leicester’s younger talent, and Busk Leicester is also coming to Castle Gardens this year. Can you tell us why opportunities like these matter for emerging artists, and what Busk Leicester will bring to Riverside?

“We work with Leics Connect at the Leicestershire Music Hub, and we give them a platform every year because it’s important for us to give those young people the opportunity to perform to wider than just their families and friends. For them it’s an opportunity to showcase, but equally, get that experience before they go into the big wide world.

BUSK Leicester is all about showcasing local talent within our city centre. We have created this initiative to ensure that street performers and entertainers get an opportunity to come back onto our streets to create an atmosphere and keep it lively.”

Rob Snart

Senior Festival & Events Officer

It’s a theme around creativity, nature, transcending yourself and delivering culture and creativity in a natural space.”

Rob Snart, Senior Festival & Events Officer

What was the inspiration behind the ‘Bloom’ theme this year? 

“The Riverside Festival has always been an event which is centred around nature and the environment, and obviously the riverside itself. The Bloom theme this year has come very much from our strong partnership work with one of our creative partners, the Bright Sparks.“

Photo credits: Beth Walsh Photography

Riverside is a bustling festival with lots of activities and stalls, can you talk to us about what options are available for those wanting a quieter, calmer space? 

“The Riverside Festival is a very busy event, there’s lots taking place along several different sites, but the Castle Gardens is very much a family focused area. We have lots of children’s creative activities, we have great food and drink, we’ve got BUSK Leicester taking place there so there’s music as well, the Bright Sparks arts charity are going to be there delivering great workshops for everyone, the whole family and it’s going to be a really great space to enjoy.”

Photo credits: Beth Walsh Photography

The layout for the festival has been changed this year; can you talk us through what the changes are and why? 

“This year the main stage is moving from the plaza off Western Boulevard on to Bede Park. One of the reasons we’ve done this is it allows to actually expand the opening times of the festival, which is great, we’ve always been asked for by both the public and our vendors year on year so it gives us a real opportunity to move the event to the next level, give us some more stage acts and artists, and more time for them to perform, and a longer festival for people to enjoy as well.”

Want to get involved?

If you have a unique story about how you use music or have a passion for supporting the artists behind the songs we love then we’d love to hear about it! Drop us an email at press@pplprs.co.uk to find out more. 

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What was the inspiration behind the ‘Bloom’ theme this year? 

“We just try and keep a bit of variety of what goes on. Weekends are our busiest, so most Fridays and Saturdays are filled up either with a private party or a gig. Thursday nights we have the jam nights, once a month we have the vinyl DJs that play up here.” – Steve

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