As part of City of Wolverhampton Council’s recently announced five-year events strategy, it is planning to set up a “festival-scale” big top in West Park that will host an array of entertainment for two weeks in August.

The plans for its Relight Festival are part of the council’s Relighting Our City strategy that involves turning Wolverhampton into an event’s city.

The five-year plan will kick off in earnest next year when the city will stage the start and finish of the Commonwealth Games road cycling time trials, the British Art Show 9 and the inaugural Creation Day Festival. It will also see the re-opening of the Civic and Wulfrun Halls after a multi-million pound overhaul.

The Council said the Relight Festival will involve a programme of varied content, which will appeal to a wide cross section of the local communities: “This will include household name comedians, music, arts and cultural activities and children’s shows. The programme would be a mixture of seated and standing shows.”

City of Wolverhampton Council director of City Environment Ross Cook, who is lead director for the council on events, said the big top will have a capacity of up to 2000 people, or 500 depending on Covid-related restrictions.

Cook said, “We’ve all been through the most horrendous year. The Relighting Our City priority is about stimulating vibrancy and bringing people back out. We will provide the sorts of events that people really need to go to again, while making sure they feel safe.”

Darrell Martin, director and booker at Just the Tonic is overseeing the comedy line-up for the Relight project.

See the forthcoming May edition of Access All Areas for an in-depth look at Wolverhampton’s event plans.