31,400
Visitors across the ten-day run
About the Festival
Eighteen editions. One town. Ten days every August.
A free-entry celebration of contemporary craft, painting, printmaking, performance and poetry, set against the working harbour and the Jurassic cliffs of Lyme Regis.
Origins
A free-entry festival, since the year the Cobb turned 250.
The Lyme Regis Arts Festival was founded in 2007 by the Lyme Regis Community Hub as a quiet, civic gesture: to give local makers a gallery and give the town a reason to gather at the close of summer. Eighteen editions on, the festival has never charged admission. Every venue stays free to enter. Every August Bank Holiday, the town becomes a ten-day open-air gallery of contemporary work — and the door stays open.
— Founded 2007 · Lyme Regis Community Hub
The Programme
184 artists, 27 town-centre venues, ten days of contemporary craft and visual art.
Across the 2024 edition, painters, printmakers, ceramicists, jewellers, photographers and performance poets took over churches, working boat-sheds, beach studios, the brewery and the Town Mill. Twenty-four makers were invited through our programming partnership with the Royal Society of Sculptors — a relationship that has shaped the festival's appetite for three-dimensional work since 2019.
- 184exhibiting artists in 2024
- 27venues across the town centre
- 24Royal Society of Sculptors makers
By the Numbers
By the numbers, 2023 edition.
Independent figures drawn from the 2023 post-event survey (n=812) and Dorset Council's economic-impact report of the same year. No 2024 economic figures are quoted here; full financials are published in our annual report.
£1.6m
Independent economic impact on Lyme Regis
180+
Exhibiting artists and makers
94%
Visitor satisfaction, 2024 survey
Sources: Dorset Council economic-impact report (2023) · Festival post-event survey, n=812 (2024)
History
Eighteen editions, in milestones.
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Chapter 012007
A free-entry festival is founded.
The Lyme Regis Community Hub convenes forty artists in three venues on the harbourside for a single August weekend. Admission is free, and stays free.
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Chapter 022018
First Dorset Tourism Award.
The festival is named Best Event of the Year at the Dorset Tourism Awards — the first of two such honours, the second following in 2021.
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Chapter 032019
Partnership with the Royal Society of Sculptors.
A programming partnership begins, bringing invited makers to Lyme Regis every edition and anchoring the festival's reputation for three-dimensional work.
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Chapter 042023
Record attendance, AIF shortlisting.
31,400 visitors across ten days — a record. The festival is shortlisted for the Association of Independent Festivals Pioneer Award, and an independent Dorset Council report values the year's local economic impact at £1.6m.
Stewardship
Run by nine trustees, four staff, and a small army of volunteers.
Lyme Regis Arts Festival Ltd is a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee. We are accountable to our members, our funders, and the town we serve. The board meets six times a year; the staff team works year-round from Town Mill Studios.
Featured
Funded by Arts Council England.
In 2024 the festival was awarded £42,000 through Arts Council England's National Lottery Project Grants, supporting the Royal Society of Sculptors strand and our year-round learning programme.
Read the annual report92% carbon-neutral programme.
In 2024, 92% of the festival programme was delivered carbon-neutral through verified offset partners. We publish a per-edition footprint and offset summary in the annual report.
Partnered with Dorset Wildlife Trust.
Since 2021 our programme partnership with the Dorset Wildlife Trust has tied residencies and exhibition themes to the UNESCO Jurassic Coast story — fossils, cliffs, and the living shore.
Correspondence: [email protected] · +44 1297 445 020
Town Mill Studios, Mill Lane, Lyme Regis, Dorset DT7 3PU, United Kingdom