Plans to attract even bigger and better events to Victoria Park in Southport are moving forward, following approval to increase the park’s official capacity by 50%.
Sefton Council has granted permission to raise the number of visitors allowed at any one time from 9,999 to 14,999, enhancing one of the North West’s premier event spaces. For over a century, Victoria Park has been home to the iconic Southport Flower Show—the UK’s largest independent flower show and the fourth biggest paid event in the Liverpool City Region.
In recent years, the park’s events calendar has expanded significantly, now including the 17-day Southport Comedy Festival, the British Musical Fireworks Championship, Southport Food and Drink Festival, Southport Oktoberfest, and more.
Operated by a local charity, Victoria Park and the Southport Flower Show are maintained without public funding. Revenue from events is reinvested into the upkeep, operations, and infrastructure of the 34-acre park, ensuring it remains a free and vibrant space for the community.
This year’s Southport Flower Show will take place from Thursday 14th to Sunday 17th August 2025, celebrating floral beauty, fresh flavours, and family fun.
Southport Flower Show and Victoria Park General Manager Alan Adams said:
“Being able to increase our capacity from 9,999 to 14,999 creates huge potential for us – and also for Southport and the Liverpool city region. It gives us real scope to go out and attract the big events we’ve not been able to engage with before. What we can achieve now is very exciting. It’s the first time Victoria Park has ever been able to operate with a capacity of this size. For large-scale events, it is going to make a real difference. One thing I have always been very eager to do is to bring some really top-quality music events to Victoria Park. You look along the coast at what they’ve achieved with the Lytham Festival in recent years and it’s been fantastic. What we can create at Victoria Park in Southport, in terms of the quality of our event space, the facilities and the infrastructure that we have here, is huge. We love the Southport Flower Show. We love Victoria Park. Equally important to us is having an important role to play in supporting the wider economy and the wider community too so that hopefully everyone benefits.
“Every year, Southport Flower Show generates an estimated £5 million for the local economy. When you add up the economic impact of all the events we stage here, that adds up to around £25 million. That makes a substantial positive impact for so many local hotels, guest houses, restaurants, cafes, bars, shops, taxi firms and others. We’re keen for more and more people to realise that Southport is a superb destination. We want to attract more people to come and enjoy the brilliant events programme that we have here; stay over; go and visit the shops and restaurants; and really enjoy themselves. Southport Flower Show and Victoria Park are operated by a charity. We are totally self-sufficient, and that is not a bad return for our town. It means that the more money we are able to generate, the more we can invest back into improving this park. We have some projects we are looking at at the moment. They include improving the toilet facilities, improving the drainage, and restoring the bandstand; these are things as a board that we need to discuss as a board. Being able to host bigger events will improve our earning potential and will create a better park for local people to enjoy. I’m very grateful for the ongoing support we’ve had from Sefton Council in enabling us to grow our capacity and what we offer for the region.”
For more information and to purchase tickets for the Southport Flower Show, visit: www.southportflowershow.co.uk