A Stoke-on-Trent canal festival is set to return this year taking inspiration from the 40th anniversary of the Stoke-On-Trent Garden Festival.

Etruria Canals Festival will return on Saturday 30 and Sunday 31 May 2026 with garden themes activities including walkabout performances, creative activities and curated spaces.

Event Co-ordinator, Rebecca Frankenberg, from B. ARTS said: "Entering the Garden festival site in 1986 must have felt like entering another world of possibilities.

"We're hoping to give visitors a small taste of that with some of the curated spaces and activities across the weekend."

There will be a range of artisan, craft and charity stalls, street food and Lymestone Brewery beer tent, alongside a programme of music including Vox Americana, Stingray and Vibealicious on the main stage with The Boatband and Art Brasil performing canal-side.

Additionally, there will also be a wide range of activities taking place during the festival - which is co-delivered by a volunteer committee made up of representatives from Etruria Industrial Museum, Nimble Fingers, Etruria Artists, B. ARTS and local residents with support from Canal and Rivers Trust.

Leek-based company Fern and Fables will be turning the top of the site (the former Gasometer) into an 'Explore and Play Garden' offering a low demand, explorative play space full of open-ended and sensory opportunities to reimagine, explore, and play!

The Fetch Theatre puppet company will be giving walkabout performances, running drop-in scrunch puppet workshops and holding mini- parades around site

Other puppetry and storytelling performances and workshops will include 'Everything is Possible' by the Social Agency, Saturday's 'Story Garden' and Sunday's 'The Magic Lantern' with Ian and Jo Douglas.

The former Canal and Rivers Trust yard will be used as a creative workshop space where attendees can try crafts such as screen printing, cyanotype photography, flower making, textile activities, decorate their own spinning plate.

B. ARTS climate café activities will be running both days of the event and Etruria Artists will be running free clay activities.

The North Staffs and Neighbours Mother Garden network will also be running a seed and plant swap on Sunday.

The canal itself will be full of historic narrow boats, and Shirley's Bone and Flint Mill, which manufactured materials to enable potters to produce the ware that Stoke-on-Trent is renowned for, will be in steam and operating from 12.30pm to 4.30pm with the engine started on the hour.

Blacksmith Charis Jones from Sculpted Steel will also be demonstrating in the on-site forge, Nimble Fingers will be demonstrating traditional canal textile crafts, and shire horses Ebony and Bayley, will be available to meet on the main field dressed in traditional canal attire.

Free public parking will be available at Stoke on Trent College (Caldon Campus) and there will be a free shuttle bus between Stoke College car park and Etruria Museum car park every 15 minutes from 10.45am-5.30pm.

For blue badge holders who are able to use steps, there are places in the main museum car park but entry to the site this way is via a staircase footbridge and cannot be used by a wheelchair. For disabled parking on the right side of the canal is by the Castlefield Street and Lower Bedford Street entrance.

To find out more about the event, visit the website here.