Summer of family fun in Newport City Centre
Summer of family fun in Newport City Centre
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With the school summer holidays under way, Newport Now BID has launched a series of fun events aimed at attracting families with children into the city centre.
Our popular Urban Beach – which last year was used by more than 9,000 children – returns for an extended period.
The beach, in John Frost Square, is open 9am-5pm every day throughout August. The first and final 60 minutes each day will be ‘quiet’ hours to ensure the beach is as inclusive as possible.
Complete with buckets, spades and deck chairs, the BID’s urban beach will provide fun for all the family.
A series of new summer events are also taking place in and around the city centre.
A pop-up park opened on July 25 underneath the Steel Wave sculpture on the riverfront. The park, complete with picket fences and picnic tables, is the perfect place for families to relax and enjoy the summer sunshine.
The park also marks the start of a Giant Chair Trail, which will provide a fun walk into the city centre.
The trail, opening on July 31, includes five giant chairs situated from the Steel Wave to the Friars Walk food zone.
The chairs range from a flower swing to one designed to look like an ice cream cone to the biggest on the trail which measure 4m x 5m.
The Giant Chair Trail provides some fantastic photo and selfie opportunities for families.
Families will also have the chance to take part in a Monster Trail through the city centre, starting on August 11.
Children will have to find all the monsters hiding in city centre shops at various points across the city centre. They can use the Newport Now app to collect the monsters.
Once they have collected all of them, youngsters will receive a free book featuring all the monster characters in a special story. The book will be available from Newport’s central library in John Frost Square.
The Urban Beach is open until August 31, while the other events will be in place until September 10.
All the summer fun events are delivered by Newport Now BID with support from Newport City Council via the UK Government’s Shared Prosperity Fund (SPF).
All the events are aimed at continuing to increase footfall in the city centre, which has been on an upward curve since 2022 and is now consistently above pre-Covid levels.
More visitors create an improved atmosphere in the area and provide increased trading opportunities for businesses as families use the trails to explore the city centre.
The new events follow the annual Big Splash street theatre festival, which kicked off the school holidays, and precede popular autumn events such as the Food and Drink Festival.
They add to an ever-increasing calendar of city centre events being delivered by the BID and other partners, all aimed at making the area a leisure, hospitality and retail destination for visitors of all ages.
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