Quick takeaways
- 30 festivals and events across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
- Covers food, music, literature, gardens, sport, walking and seasonal celebrations
- Ideal for day trips, spring weekends and Easter or bank holiday planning
- Includes official weblinks for every event
April and May are excellent months for getting out and about in Britain. The weather is usually improving, the gardens are waking up, the Easter holidays often bring extra programming, and the festival calendar begins stretching its limbs after winter. One weekend you can be eating your body weight in artisan cheese on a Cornish beach, the next you can be standing beside the Thames watching rowers and wondering how this all became so competitive.
It is also the sweet spot for variety. Spring in the UK is not just about flowers and stately homes, although there is certainly enough of that if you enjoy a tulip border and a scone. It is about marathon crowds in major cities, folk festivals in remote islands, literary gatherings in handsome towns, county shows, jazz weekends, whisky celebrations and enough food festivals to make your belt nervous.
The joy of this time of year is that there is no single right way to do it. You can book a polished city break around a famous event, or use a smaller local festival as an excuse to visit somewhere you would not otherwise have considered. That is often how the best UK trips begin. Not with a grand plan, but with the discovery that somewhere in Yorkshire or Norfolk or Dumfries is putting on something rather good and you may as well go.
1. York Chocolate Festival
Where to find it York
When to go 1 to 5 April 2026
York is already one of those cities that feels faintly edible, with its tea rooms, old shopfronts and generally agreeable atmosphere, so giving it a chocolate festival is really just leaning into its strengths. Expect tastings, demonstrations and plenty of opportunities to pretend you are buying gifts for other people.
Official website
https://visityork.org/events/york-chocolate-festival-2026
2. The Boat Race
Where to find it London
When to go 4 April 2026
There is something wonderfully British about lining the riverbank to watch two university crews hurtle along the Thames while commentators talk earnestly about tradition. It is dramatic, historic and surprisingly easy to get caught up in, even if you arrived with no strong feelings about rowing whatsoever.
Official website
https://www.theboatrace.org/
3. Grand National Festival
Where to find it Aintree, Liverpool
When to go 9 to 11 April 2026
This is one of the great showpiece events of the sporting spring. Even people who never normally think about horse racing suddenly start discussing form, fences and the wisdom of hats that require their own support structure. Aintree does spectacle well, and the whole thing has the air of an event Britain has been practising for generations.
Official website
https://www.thejockeyclub.co.uk/aintree/events-tickets/grand-national/
4. Walk Scilly Festival
Where to find it Isles of Scilly
When to go 10 to 19 April 2026
For sheer spring escapism this is hard to beat. The Isles of Scilly already feel like Britain drifting off into a happier climate, and a walking festival here means sea views, coastal paths and a constant sense that you have somehow wandered into a much more expensive holiday brochure.
Official website
https://www.visitislesofscilly.com/event/walk-scilly-festival/259858301/
5. Manchester Marathon
Where to find it Manchester
When to go 19 April 2026
Even if you are not running, marathons make for brilliant city atmosphere. Manchester comes alive for it, with crowds lining the route, streets full of nervous energy and the usual marvellous range of participants from elite athletes to people dressed as household objects for charity.
Official website
https://www.manchestermarathon.co.uk/
6. World Snooker Championship
Where to find it Sheffield
When to go 18 April to 4 May 2026
The Crucible in snooker season has a kind of hushed grandeur, like a theatre where everybody has agreed that whispering and tension are now the main entertainment. Even non-fans can appreciate the atmosphere, the concentration and the odd fact that the whole thing looks both incredibly simple and impossible.
Official website
https://www.wst.tv/tickets/world-championship-2026-tickets
7. St George’s Day celebrations
Where to find it Across England
When to go 23 April 2026
St George’s Day is less one giant national party than a scattered collection of local celebrations, markets, special events and pub-based enthusiasm. That is part of the charm. It tends to appear in market squares, high streets and community calendars rather than in one big polished package.
Official website
https://www.visitbritain.com/en/annual-events-britain
8. Shakespeare’s Birthday Celebrations
Where to find it Stratford-upon-Avon
When to go 25 April 2026
Stratford knows exactly what it is doing here. The town leans cheerfully into its Shakespeare heritage with parades, performances and a general atmosphere of literary festivity. It is a lovely excuse to visit a handsome historic town and claim that your weekend away was culturally improving.
Official website
https://www.shakespearescelebrations.com/
9. TCS London Marathon
Where to find it London
When to go 26 April 2026
This is London at full volume. The crowds are huge, the costumes often alarming, and the emotional atmosphere has a way of sweeping everybody along with it. Whether you are running, spectating or simply caught up in the tide of people near Tower Bridge, it feels like a real occasion.
Official website
https://www.londonmarathonevents.co.uk/london-marathon
10. Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival
Where to find it Speyside
When to go 29 April to 4 May 2026
Whisky festivals have a certain advantage in that they combine scenic landscapes with the possibility of leaving in a very relaxed mood. Speyside is beautiful in its own right, but add distilleries, tastings and special events and you have one of the finest spring pilgrimages in Scotland.
Official website
https://www.spiritofspeyside.com/festival/whisky
11. Cheltenham Jazz Festival
Where to find it Cheltenham
When to go 29 April to 4 May 2026
Cheltenham already has the polished look of a place that expects people to turn up for a festival, and jazz suits it perfectly. There is something pleasing about spending a spring weekend in a Regency town with good music, good food and at least one moment where you briefly consider becoming the sort of person who says things like intimate set.
Official website
https://www.cheltenhamfestivals.org/festivals/jazz-festival
12. Shetland Folk Festival
Where to find it Shetland
When to go 30 April to 3 May 2026
A folk festival in Shetland has the advantage of sounding romantic before you even get there. Once you do arrive, the combination of music, community spirit and dramatic northern setting makes it one of the most distinctive festival experiences in the UK.
Official website
https://www.shetlandfolkfestival.com/
13. Liverpool Sound City
Where to find it Liverpool
When to go 2 to 3 May 2026
Liverpool hardly needs an excuse to celebrate music, but this festival keeps its credentials sharp with a focus on new artists and fresh energy. It is a good pick if you like your city breaks with live gigs, late nights and a sense that you might stumble across somebody who becomes famous next year.
Official website
https://www.soundcity.uk.com/sound-city-festival
14. Brighton Fringe
Where to find it Brighton
When to go 1 to 31 May 2026
Brighton in May is already lively, and Fringe season turns it into a full-scale carnival of comedy, theatre, cabaret, oddity and exhaustion. It is open access, gloriously varied and perfect for visitors who enjoy wandering into a venue with no idea what they are about to see.
Official website
https://www.brightonfringe.org/
15. Brighton Festival
Where to find it Brighton
When to go 1 to 25 May 2026
Running alongside the Fringe but with its own distinct identity, Brighton Festival brings together major arts programming in one of Britain’s breeziest seaside cities. It is the sort of event that makes you feel smarter simply by holding a programme.
Official website
https://brightonfestival.org/
16. Belfast City Marathon
Where to find it Belfast
When to go 3 May 2026
A major city marathon is always more than a race. It becomes a day-long urban carnival of encouragement, logistics and collective endurance. Belfast wears it well, and it makes a strong anchor for a spring visit to the city.
Official website
https://belfastcitymarathon.com/
17. FOCUS Wales
Where to find it Wrexham
When to go 7 to 9 May 2026
This lively showcase festival mixes live music with industry buzz and plenty of local atmosphere. It also gives Wrexham another reason to feel like one of the more interesting towns in Britain right now, which is not something many people would have predicted a few years ago.
Official website
https://focuswales.com/
18. RHS Malvern Spring Festival
Where to find it Malvern
When to go 7 to 10 May 2026
If you like gardens, flower shows and the sight of people discussing compost with tremendous seriousness, Malvern is a very good spring choice. It is bright, colourful and thoroughly enjoyable, even if your own gardening achievements rarely extend beyond keeping a supermarket basil plant alive for three days.
Official website
https://www.rhs.org.uk/shows-events/malvern-spring-festival
19. Norfolk and Norwich Festival
Where to find it Norwich and venues across Norfolk
When to go 8 to 24 May 2026
One of the pleasures of this festival is the way it spills beyond a single venue or art form. There is theatre, music, visual art and outdoor performance, all spread through a part of England that deserves more cultural credit than it often gets.
Official website
https://nnfestival.org.uk/
20. Isle of Wight Walking Festival
Where to find it Isle of Wight
When to go 9 to 17 May 2026
The Isle of Wight has long understood the appeal of a proper walking holiday. Add a festival structure with routes and events, and you have an easy way to enjoy the island’s coastal scenery, villages and occasional moments of smugness about having chosen a more virtuous break than a city weekend.
Official website
https://isleofwightwalkingfestival.co.uk/
21. St Ives Food and Drink Festival
Where to find it St Ives, Cornwall
When to go 15 to 17 May 2026
A food festival on the Cornish coast is one of those combinations that feels almost unfairly appealing. Good produce, sea air and beachside atmosphere do a lot of the work before you have even looked at the menu boards.
Official website
https://stivesfoodanddrinkfestival.co.uk/
22. Emirates FA Cup Final
Where to find it Wembley Stadium, London
When to go 16 May 2026
The FA Cup Final remains one of the great set pieces of the sporting year. The venue, the scale, the fans and the history all combine to make it feel bigger than an ordinary match, even in an age that likes to pretend everything is equally enormous.
Official website
https://www.wembleystadium.com/events/2026/The-Emirates-FA-Cup-Final
23. South Gloucestershire Food and Drink Festival
Where to find it South Gloucestershire
When to go 16 to 17 May 2026
This is the kind of spring event that works especially well for a relaxed weekend outing. Food festivals tend to be cheerful by design, and this one has the all-important advantage of being somewhere you can happily spend hours drifting from one good idea to another.
Official website
https://southglosfoodfest.co.uk/
24. Bath Literature Festival
Where to find it Bath
When to go 16 to 24 May 2026
Bath looks as though it was built to host a literature festival, and in some ways perhaps it was. Authors, talks and elegant Georgian surroundings make for an especially civilised sort of cultural break, with the added benefit that the coffee stops are usually excellent.
Official website
https://bathfestivals.org.uk/bath-literature-festival/
25. RHS Chelsea Flower Show
Where to find it London
When to go 19 to 23 May 2026
This is the grande dame of British flower shows. Chelsea is polished, prestigious and intensely photogenic, with gardens that make you briefly believe you too could transform an outdoor space, before remembering you own three mismatched pots and a folding chair.
Official website
https://www.rhs.org.uk/shows-events/rhs-chelsea-flower-show
26. Bearded Theory
Where to find it Catton Park, Derbyshire
When to go 20 to 24 May 2026
One of the more warmly regarded music festivals of the season, Bearded Theory has built a loyal following with a strong line-up and a friendly feel. It suits people who want festival energy without feeling as though they have wandered into a week-long endurance test.
Official website
https://beardedtheory.co.uk/
27. Hay Festival
Where to find it Hay-on-Wye
When to go 21 to 31 May 2026
Hay has become shorthand for a certain type of brilliant British event, intelligent, bookish, stimulating and somehow still enjoyable even when the weather is behaving like Wales in late spring. It is one of the best literary festivals anywhere, and a superb excuse to explore the border country.
Official website
https://www.hayfestival.com/hay-on-wye/home
28. Devon County Show
Where to find it Near Exeter
When to go 21 to 23 May 2026
The county show remains a wonderful British institution. Animals, agriculture, local produce, displays and the sort of wholesome chaos that comes from trying to gather rural life into one large, cheerful event. Devon does it particularly well.
Official website
https://devoncountyshow.co.uk/
29. Dumfries and Galloway Arts Festival
Where to find it Dumfries and Galloway
When to go 21 May to 14 June 2026
A regional arts festival is often a very good reason to discover a place that might otherwise sit quietly on your list for later. This one brings added cultural energy to south-west Scotland and pairs well with scenic drives, market towns and generally wondering why more people are not talking about the region.
Official website
https://artsdg.org.uk/what-we-do/festivals/
30. Birmingham Pride
Where to find it Birmingham
When to go 23 to 24 May 2026
A major Pride celebration always brings colour, music and a sense of occasion, and Birmingham does scale well. It is lively, welcoming and the kind of city event that can easily become the centrepiece of a spring weekend away.
Official website
https://birminghampride.com/
Final thoughts
There are easier times of year to stay at home, but April and May are not among them. Britain in spring is full of invitations to go somewhere, see something, taste something or stand in a crowd with strangers while pretending this was all part of a carefully balanced cultural plan. Whether you want a literary long weekend, a sporty city break, a garden-focused day out or an island walking adventure, these months offer an absurdly rich choice.
