Leamington Peace Festival marks its 40 anniversary this weekend

This year marks the 40th festival - and organisers hope it will be the best yet.

As usual, the two day event (Saturday June 16 and Sunday June 17) will take place at the Pump Room Gardens.

This year there will be more than 160 stalls, peace talks, workshops, vegetarian food, children’s entertainment, performances and music.

The event runs from 11am-7pm on Saturday and 11am-6pm Sunday.

The first festival, at the time called the Leamington Festival for International Understanding and Peace, was held in 1978. Conceived as a non-political, non-profit making event, its roots stem from previous festivals held with growing interest and success in the area, each basing its theme on aspects of peace (Peace Pledge Union, Oxfam Festival and Leamington Spa Health Foundation).

For the second year running there will be a donation point for the Warwick and Leamington Foodbank.

Thomas Mead, director of the Leamington Peace Festival, said: “We are very excited to be here for the 40th year and cannot begin to thank all of our directors, committee members and weekend volunteers who have helped to run this fantastic event. We have always been completely volunteer run which we believe is a huge accomplishment of an event this size.”

Visit peacefestival.org.uk to find out more.