Background & Event Information
Eastbourne Carnival began life in 1895 as part of the Battle of the Flowers Celebration. In more recent times, it was brought back by the then MP for Eastbourne, Stephen Lloyd in 2011 after an absence of 15+ years. In 2021, Stephen Lloyd handed the position of Committee Chair to Mina O’Brien, who, with the Committee has now delivered successful Carnivals in 2022,2023 & 2024.
The Carnival is now an annual event taking place on the Saturday of the late May Bank Holiday weekend. There are three main components of the event held on the day:
Background & Event Information
Eastbourne Carnival began life in 1895 as part of the Battle of the Flowers Celebration. In more recent times, it was brought back by the then MP for Eastbourne, Stephen Lloyd in 2011 after an absence of 15+ years. In 2021, Stephen Lloyd handed the position of Committee Chair to Mina O’Brien, who, with the Committee has now delivered successful Carnivals in 2022,2023 & 2024.
The Carnival is now an annual event taking place on the Saturday of the late May Bank Holiday weekend. There are three main components of the event held on the day:
We are hoping to attract a good mix of entrants, including community groups, businesses, charities and schools. Additionally, we enable individuals and families to get involved in our ‘Everyone’s Carnival’ group. We work with local artists and performers who deliver Carnival workshops to help create costumes and deliver dance workshops.
At 11:30am, Carnival is officially launched by the Mayor of Eastbourne in Eastbourne Town Centre (outside the Enterprise Shopping Centre) with a small procession of costumes and drummers through town centre, ending at the top of Victoria Place (Terminus Road).
The Main Parade starts at 2pm from Fisherman’s Green, and ends approximately 4:30pm at the Wish Tower Slopes
A Street Party is held after the main procession at Victoria Place until 8pm.
The theme for Eastbourne Carnival 2025 is ‘Celebrations of the World.’
In 2022, 2023 & 2024, we worked with Sunshine International Arts, who are a longstanding Notting Hill Carnival band – to create our big ‘King and Queen’ Costumes, and supply smaller costumes featured at the front of the Parade.
In 2023, we engaged the Metronomes Steel Orchestra, and they came down from Notting Hill to perform at the beginning of the Parade.
We could not achieve this without the support and sponsorship from the local business community.
We anticipate that 2025 will be even bigger – and we are expecting more entrants, and a bigger crowd.
Marketing the Carnival
- Working with Bourne Free and Custard Print for regular features from February – May.
- We work with Seahaven FM to run Ads in the build up to the event.
- Working with Media Attention who place Digital Billboards and Posters around Eastbourne with Adverts for Carnival.
- Social Media, provided by Ditzy Media, with organic and paid ads to reach the community throughout the period January – May, but with increased posting February – May to advertise sponsors.
- In 2023, Eastbourne Carnival was picked up internationally by the wider Carnival community and was featured in ‘Soca News’ – See Here .
- We also get a lot of post event coverage and in 2022 were featured on both BBC South East Today and Meridian News.
- Our social media reach in May 2024 alone was over 376.2K.
- Our YouTube Channel has videos of the 2022, 2023 & 2024 Eastbourne Carnivals.