Everything you need to know about Wigan Diggers Festival 2026

A festival celebrating the life of Wigan socialist Gerrard Winstanley will return this weekend with music, performances and poetry.

Wigan Diggers Festival takes place on Saturday, with events on two stages on Believe Square, as well as at Civic and Wigan Parish Church, from 11am until 9.30pm.

The festival originally started with a gathering of 50 people in a pub back garden and now attracts thousands of people.

It celebrates the life and ideas of Wigan-born Gerrard Winstanley, founder of The Diggers, whose revolutionary statement that “The Earth is a common treasury for all” became a challenge to the established 17th Century order of the State and the Church and was eventually suppressed.

His ideas influenced many significant thinkers and gives weight to Wigan’s claim to be one of the birthplaces of socialism.

The stages will feature local, regional and national artists in a variety of styles, covering folk, blues-rock, classic rock, agit-punk and the percussive delights of both More Than Words and Wigan True Levellers Samba Band.

The latter will lead the opening parade to the festival site, where costumed performers will stage a re-enactment of the Diggers breaking soil in the common land they occupied at St George’s Hill in Surrey, where they intended to farm together with produce shared among the community. However, the group was driven from the land.

There are talks and meetings planned, performances by poets from across the North West and a film showing in the cinema at Civic.

People are invited to go along, share ideas and enjoy original music, starting with The Reformers of Peterloo, performing excerpts from their rock opera commemorating the Battle of Peterloo, and continuing with acts including rocking socialist anthems from Bard Company and classic blues-rock from McHale’s Permanent Brew.

There will be a presentation of the Diggers Spade Award to someone who has contributed to making the world a better place, in the spirit of Gerard Winstanley.

Previous recipients include actor Maxine Peake, writer Jimmy McGovern, film maker Ken Loach and former Labour MP Tony Benn.

There will be a performance by another winner - political activist and singer-songwriter Joe Solo - and the evening will be rounded off by Shanghai Treason with their banjo folk-punk.

The event is run by volunteers and funded by donations and sales at the bar.