The free, award-winning annual festival Vintage By The Sea was established in 2013 in Morecambe and celebrates the brilliance of 20th century design, fashion, vehicles and entertainment. This is one of the north-west’s largest free festivals with up to 50,000 visitors experiencing live music, classic cars, street theatre, workshops, marketplace & crafts, heritage bus rides, vintage fairground and pop-up dance.
Whether your thing is swing, rockabilly, mod, soul, funk, disco, ska, film, art or design – or even if you just fancy getting an authentic makeover for a day – the Vintage by the Sea festival is a sensual delight, a big dressing-up box, a collector’s dream and a joyous creative feast for all ages. For one glamorous weekend, the very best cultural delights from the 1920s to the 1990s are up for grabs for all to enjoy and admire. The fantastic setting of Morecambe’s seafront is the backdrop and transforms the festival into a multi-venue playground where visitors can learn the dances in specially curated live performances, listen to exclusive DJ sets, see evocative fashion, taste brilliantly conceived food and cocktails, ogle over beautiful vintage vehicles or take advantage of the hair and beauty makeovers and, of course, all the wonderful vintage shopping that’s on offer.
The event brings the largest positive economic impact to the town of any event and is playing a lead role in Morecambe’s cultural and visitor renaissance.
“In my 24 years in Morecambe I have never experienced anything that quite matches this year’s Vintage by the Sea Festival which it is estimated to have attracted more than 40,000 to Morecambe for the weekend. We should never lose faith in Morecambe’s intrinsic potential. This spectacular success of the event showed conclusively and convincingly that a real breakthrough has been made in bringing something unique and energising to Morecambe and which will be talked about for years to come”
Ron Sands, Lancaster City Council’s Cabinet member for leisure, culture and tourism
AWARDS
Large Tourism Event Award at the Lancashire Tourism Awards 2016
Tourism Event Award at the Lancashire Tourism Awards 2014
Voted one of the best vintage events in the world, 2014 by The Guardian