How to enjoy the harbour at Bristol Harbour Festival 2023

With its music areas, its spectacular array of food, its circus performances and its kids’ stuff, Bristol Harbour Festival has developed to reflect the city in all its myriad delights.

But it’s the harbour where both the event and Bristol itself began, and it remains the single most popular element of the weekend’s proceedings.

You could have a finished arena with Harry Styles standing stage front, and it still wouldn’t attract as many pairs of eyes as a bloke flying high above the crowds to loop the loop on a water-spewing combination of skateboard and vacuum cleaner.

(His name is James Prestwood and, yes, he’s back this year.)

While the Caravan Collective perform on board the MV Balmoral on Friday evening, the itinerary for the rest of weekend’s waterside celebrations is jam-packed – from canoe polo and boat races to jet ski water stunts.

More than 200,000 people attend Bristol Harbour Festival each year, enjoying vessels and water sports – photo: Colin RaynerWhile much of the programme is centred on the waters in front of M-Shed, there’s plenty going on in the further-flung reaches of the harbour, too.

On the western edge, for example, stands Underfall Yard, working hard to bounce back from the devastating fire it suffered in May.

The cafe will be open here, replete with its magnificent view back across the water, and the proceeds of your devouring and drinking will go towards rebuilding the historic workshops. You’ll also find interactive activities, DJs, shanty crews and spoken word poets.

Staying on a yesteryear tip, the city’s largest dry dock will be free to explore on the Saturday. The 540ft-long Albion Dockyard – then known as New Dockyard – was originally dug in 1820 and has been a key part of the harbour ever since.

Visitors are invited to hear about plans to conserve the facility, continued ship repair, and the development of a STEM learning heritage attraction alongside the SS Great Britain.

The annual event marks Bristol’s maritime history – photo: Paul Box

The dock has a long connection with Bristol’s most famous ship. When the SS Great Britain was returned from the Falkland Islands in 1970, it was the John King– launched from Albion Dock in 1935 – that pulled her on the last leg of the journey.

And the tug will be back in action this weekend, offering trips around the harbour from her berth in the shadow of the M-Shed’s cranes.

There’s always a general swelling of the boat population come Harbour Fest time, from the unusually crowded moorings to the perpetual back and forth of craft on the water. Some of them are barely even seaworthy.

We’re talking cardboard boats, the have-a-go-heroes of the weekend, fashioned from naught but packing boxes, duct tape and determination, each intent on winning the race, many sadly destined to come to a watery end well before the finish line.

Then there are the other cardboard vessels, the ones made in the style of the classic Bristol Channel pilot cutter.

Expect more than a hundred to take to the water this weekend, built by youngsters from across the city.

Which seems apt, for this watery expanse was not only historically the most magnetic part of the city, it remains so today and will, surely, continue to endure as such in the future.

To find out more about the festival’s waterside events, visit www.bristolharbourfestival.co.uk/whats-on/on-the-water

Main photo: Paul Box

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• Bristol Harbour Festival announces full programme for 2023

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