Take Five Weston Arts + Health Festival 2026

9-12 July, online, on the beach and at Weston General Hospital!

Co-produced by Super Culture and UHBW Arts & Culture Programme, part of Bristol NHS Group, Weston Arts + Health Festival returns for its seventh year!

Once again, we take to the hospital wards and the beach to celebrate Weston’s many wonderful qualities – its landscape, its people, and the creativity, care, and energy that make the Weston experience unique.

Weston Arts + Health Festival continues to take inspiration from the Five Ways to Wellbeing: Be Active, Take Notice, Give, Keep Learning, and this year’s focus, Connect. Connecting with other people can reduce stress, lift mood, and help us feel supported. The varied festival programme offers a lively, light-touch range of activities designed to gently prompt different ways of connecting year-round – all built with a large, sandcastle-sized dollop of creativity!

In the run-up to the festival, staff and patients at Weston General Hospital are taking part in ward- and garden-based tea parties, live music, storytelling, collaborative weaving, dancing, poetry, and creative wellbeing sessions. Look out for their hand-stitched flags – upcycled from old nurses’ uniforms – which will feature in Saturday’s Flag Carnival.  NHS staff will carry the flags alongside community groups from North Somerset, celebrating the positive values of togetherness as they process along the Promenade to the upbeat sounds of North Somerset Samba.

The Procession culminates at the Festival Hub, which will be bursting with activities throughout the weekend. Whether you’re tempted by crafting, singing, cooking, walking, volunteering, making music, writing poetry, swimming, doing yoga, flying kites, drinking tea or meditating, come and join us — at whatever pace you choose — for a people-powered, joy-filled weekend by the beach.

All events are absolutely free and all activities are drop-in except for Friday night and the walks, where booking is recommended. 

Relax, chat, and enjoy a cup of tea in the festival’s beach hub all weekend long! 

Be part of a photographic intervention that celebrates the people, friends, and familiar faces – who call Weston-super-Mare Home.  Share your story and have your portrait taken as we build a kaleidoscopic picture of Weston’s community to exhibit at Weston General Hospital. 

And on the beach, venture to Matthew Harrison’s ‘Community Chest’, a collaborative escape room experience for all ages.  Four groups of participants are simultaneously locked in four separate chambers of a giant treasure chest and must help each other to escape. A participatory interactive art installation that’s all about being Good Neighbours!

Thank you to Bristol & Weston Hospitals Charity for making this festival possible.