A City Wide 1960s Festival
‘ReVive’ was a 1960’s inspired festival which brought the past to life and saw the whole city turn Mod with hundreds of scooters lining the streets for the special Scooterama event organised in partnership with The Leicestershire Alliance Scooter Club. The exciting three-week festival tied-in with the Mods: Shaping a Generation exhibition and ran over three weekends in June 2019, and was led by Soft Touch Arts.
The idea behind Revive was to curate a programme of creative and cultural events to bring people from across the UK to Leicester with an attractive package of visiting the exhibition and a reason to stay over. The festival included films, music, fashion talks, workshops and more, inspired by and showing the creativity of the 1960s.
BID Leicester supported the festival which was a great success in boosting tourism and increasing day and overnight visits to Leicester. Alongside the popular 3-month exhibition at Leicester Museum and Art Gallery and Soft Touch Arts, Revive contributed £1.75 million to the local economy with people spending in independent local shops, bars, restaurants and hotels.
Dance, music, talks, films and creative workshops programmed by local cinemas, arts venues, pubs, clubs, restaurants and galleries contributed to a feeling that Leicester had turned MOD in June 2019! Revive animated the city with a vibrant and exciting reason to visit and enjoy the programme and exhibition.
The culmination of the festival was a Sunday extravaganza, Modfathers Day (as it fell on Father’s Day), with an iconic display of 1960s scooters, music, street food and a vintage fair on Leicester market. Local independent shops, restaurants and the Highcross Shopping Centre all joined in and programmed their own events and 60s-themed promotions. A local brewery even made a special Revive beer sold in one of Leicester’s Cultural Quarter bars!
This successful formula was repeated in August 2023 with a weekend festival to tie in with the Punk: Rage & Revolution Exhibition.
