COVENTRY’S Assembly Festival Gardens, which has hosted more than 140 different shows and attracted 140,000 people over the past two years, has closed its gates for the final time.
The venue – created for the City of Culture year – was brought back in 2022 as it had proved so popular.
But the Coventry City of Culture Trust has now confirmed it would not be operating the Assembly Festival Garden in the summer of 2023.
The pop-up ‘gardens’ with spiegeltents of varying sizes played host to some of the biggest names in music, comedy and more.
It also held the renowned Big Tent Ideas Festival political event and has screened a number of live events, including Ed Sheeran’s appearance at the HMV Empire, the Euro 2021 final between England and Italy, the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations in London and the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.
An Assembly Festival Garden spokesperson said this year’s set of summer shows had been another huge hit with visitors.
Since reopening for the season in April, 62,000 audience members have enjoyed shows there and thousands more have socialised in the garden.
Last year’s garden events proved a big hit with 90 per cent of visitors describing their experience as good, very good or excellent and 81 per cent said the garden ‘improved their perception of the city’.
In total, 60 diverse events have been staged this time around, ranging from children’s shows to huge theatre performances.
Other highlights included the return of ‘The Choir of Man’, ‘Friendsical’, a parody musical of the hit TV sitcom Friends, an open-air adaptation of ‘The Wind in the Willows’ and one of the world’s biggest acts – the Soweto Gospel Choir.
But a Coventry City of Culture Trust spokesperson said it was time for the final curtain.
“The use of the temporary site was generously donated by Coventry University and we are hugely grateful to them for their support, and for extending it into a second summer.”
The Trust added it would actively support and commission other partners in the city as they continue to develop plans for the post-City of Culture events programme.
What do you think? Would you have liked to have seen the Assembly Festival Gardens become a permanent fixture for Coventry? Email [email protected] with your views.
