Vintage by the Sea 10 Year Anniversary Festival - 2nd & 3rd September 2023

Date
September 2014 to 2022

Vintage by the Sea will next take place on 2nd & 3rd September 2023.

Location
Morecambe Seafront

Partner
Vintage by the Sea is a Vintage Festival brand, Produced & Curated by Deco Publique in Partnership with Lancaster City

Awards
Finalist - Visit Lancashire Large Tourism Event of the Year Award, 2018 Winner - Visit Lancashire Large Tourism Event of the Year Award, 2016
Finalist / UK Festival Awards, 2016
Highly Commended / Visit England Large Tourism Event of the Year Award 2014

Highlight
Producing a festival in Deco Publique’s home town makes it even more special. We see our locality transformed and we see the positive, cultural, economic and social benefits of the festival play out throughout the year. 

In 2013 we approached Wayne & Gerardine Hemingway MBE with a proposition to bring their Vintage Festival brand to Morecambe, and in a celebration of the Midland Hotel’s 80th anniversary - together we created Vintage by the Sea.

Deco Publique have since co-curated and produced the award-winning festival helping it to become an established name on the UK's cultural events calendar. Described by The Guardian as one of the ‘Top Five Retro Events in the World’, the festival now attracts 40,000+ visitors per year with thirty-four percent travelling from outside the region, attracts approximately a million pounds of economic impact into Morecambe and supports full hotel capacity across the district.

The festival perfectly showcases Deco Publique's ethos - bringing a high quality programme of performance, art, food, music and markets to Morecambe in a way that intimately integrates with its community and place.

Every September the seafront provides a stunning backdrop for a programme of cultural content inspired by the 1920s to the 1990s - including an exceptional lineup of classic cars, cocktails, vintage and design marketplaces, DJ sets, Best in Show fashion parades, workshops, street food and walkabout performance. The programme develops every year, with highlights including a Battle-of-Britain Memorial Flypast, art trail, Vintage Pooch Parade, a curated music and art programme and an outreach project with The Sands Care Home.

Delivered in partnership with Lancaster City Council - Vintage by the Sea is supported with funding from Lancaster City Council, Morecambe Town Council and Arts Council England.

 

Vintage by the Sea - Highlights Gallery

 

Project Areas

Research | Creative Direction | Programming | Project Management | Festival Direction | Arts Commissioning |Budget Control | Operations | Design, Marketing & PR Direction

 
Wayne Hemingway MBE & the stars of 2017’s Best in Show. Photography Daniel Alison

Wayne Hemingway MBE & the stars of 2017’s Best in Show. Photography Daniel Alison

"Vintage by the Sea has become a recognised fixture on the British cultural events calendar with superb programming and a truly diverse audience of all ages and from all backgrounds. Being born in Morecambe, it means a lot to me and my own family to see the seafront transformed as it will be again this September, we knew this is what Morecambe was capable of.” 

Wayne Hemingway


Vintage by the Sea 2016, a Film by Daniel Brereton

 
 

‘Quite Unfit for Females’ performance by About Time Dance Company, Vintage By The Sea, 2022

“Vintage by the Sea is a wonderful feature of our cultural life and a shout out to the world how wonderful Morecambe is!”

Festival Visitor

Best in Show Catwalk, Vintage By The Sea, 2022

"In my 24 years in Morecambe I have never experienced anything that quite matches this year's Vintage by the Sea Festival, which is estimated to have attracted more than 40,000 to Morecambe for the weekend. We should never lose faith in Morecambe's intrinsic potential. The spectacular success of the event shows conclusively and convincingly that a real breakthrough has been made in bringing something unique and energising to Morecambe which will be talked about for years to come." 

Councillor Ron Sands, Lancaster City Council's cabinet member for Leisure, Culture and Tourism

Gallery

 
 

To find out more about Vintage by the Sea 2022, contact Lauren or Elena here.