A vintage festival celebrating Bangor’s heyday as a busy seaside town. 2021 dates coming soon
Our latest project, in collaboration with NI Water, features beautiful vintage postcards of Bangor with historical text printed on boards along the coastal path at Brompton and Stricklands Glen. Click here to find out more
SEASIDE REVIVAL
2020 FESTIVAL
2019 FESTIVAL
HISTORY BOARDS
GALLERY
Why Are We Doing It?
In recent decades local people have become increasingly disconnected from the town’s heritage. With very little cultural infrastructure and a failed retail sector, Bangor has suffered a downward social and economic spiral symptomatic of many British and Irish seaside towns.
Older people in Bangor look back with fondness to its heyday, but with a sense of regret for all that has been lost, while many of the younger generation who know little of the town’s past condemn it as a boring place to live. But we believe that Bangor has so much to offer everyone who lives here.
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Our Aims
Through this new vintage festival we want to revive positive memories and use them to create new ones. We hope to reposition Bangor as a modern seaside town, drawing on its unique assets of the seafront, a thriving community of artists and creatives, Victorian architecture, its closeness to Belfast – and most importantly, an appetite among residents for regeneration.
We believe that if local people can connect with their past, they will start talking the town up – a key part of the next chapter.
Funders
Funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund Great Place Scheme, Seaside Revival aims to re-position Bangor as a modern seaside town – the Brighton of Northern Ireland – with a distinctive cultural offer. Additional support is provided by Ards & North Down Borough Council.
Partners
Led by Open House Festival, the Project brings together six organisations representing different businesses and community interests in the town: Bangor Chamber of Commerce, North Down Community Network, North Down Development Corporation, Boom! Studios, and Main Street My Street.
Translink have played a historic role in linking Bangor to the rest of Northern Ireland and we’re proud to have their support for another Seaside Revival.
