Cancelled
The Strikemaster pair in 2019
The 2021 Southport Air Show will not take place this year due to continued uncertainty over large scale events.
Sefton Council has made the difficult decision to cancel the popular Southport Air Show, which was set to take place in July, despite months of hard work and planning by the authority’s Tourism team and partners.
While this decision has not been taken lightly, we know that thousands of people visit to see our air show and Sefton Council continues to put the safety and wellbeing of our communities and visitors first throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
Owing to the large scale of planning and preparations required for an event as large as Southport Air Show, work began in late 2020 with the aim of delivering the spectacular and jaw dropping weekend of aerial displays that is an icon of Southport’s events calendar.
Southport, Merseyside, is on the coast of the Irish sea, not far from Liverpool. There is a very deep expanse of sand. As well as the sand, another backdrop for the displays is the very old but modernised Southport Pier, the second longest pleasure pier in Great Britain.
Southport is unusual in three respects. Firstly, because the beach is so deep there are displays over the sand, whereas at other seaside shows the aircraft would always be over water. The second novel feature is that Southport charges, so you have to buy tickets to get the best views. Southport has managed to make this work, unlike unsuccessful charging experiments at seaside shows elsewhere. Thirdly, some light aircraft land on the beach before the main displays, so there are ground aircraft movements, whereas at other seaside shows all displays would fly in and fly out.
A number of factors have been considered in the decision, including safety of visitors and staff as well as the availability and quality of aircraft available.
Anyone who has already purchased a ticket will automatically receive a full refund.
A spokesperson for Sefton Council said: “The decision to cancel The Air Show has not been taken lightly.
“Keeping our visitors, communities, staff and partners safe remains paramount and is just one of a number of factors being at the forefront of this decision.
“At this time there is no certainty that the event would be allowed to take place on the scale that such an iconic event deserves.
“We have also taken the decision to delay the Southport Food & Drink Festival until later this year and will confirm a new date as soon as we can.
“While this is disappointing news to us all, we continue to do everything we can to bring incredible and amazing events back to our borough and we are working hard towards hosting the British Musical Fireworks Championship (September 24 to September 26) and a rearranged Southport Food and Drink Festival at Victoria Park, Southport.”
Use the postcode PR8 1RY until you get close enough to pick up the airshow direction signs. Follow the signs in preference to the sat nav once you see them, as there may be traffic diversions in place.
There are links to other route planners in the Travel Advice section.
Northern Rail operate direct services to Southport from Manchester city and airport, Bolton and Wigan. Merseyrail go direct to Liverpool airport and city. From Manchester and Liverpool there are connecting services nationwide.
It is best to book as far as possible in advance. This is not only because nearby hotels and guest houses tend get booked up well before the date of an airshow but also because prices can be better when you book early online.
There are plenty of booking agencies. We find that many of the well known ones are better at finding hotels from international or larger UK chains and may suggest hotels in main towns or cities quite a distance from the show site.
Premier Inn have one hotel in Southport itself, another just outside, in Ormskirk and more in Liverpool and Preston.
Travelodge have one hotel in Southport itself and more in Lytham St Annes and Blackpool.
Click any of the blue names to go to the corresponding web site. The links already have the location built in, but please check, and change as necessary, the dates, number of rooms and number of guests.
The Met Office 7-day forecast includes actual and "feels like" temperatures, the likelihood of rain, wind speed, wind direction, wind gusts and visibility: the latter can have an impact on the viability of displays.
The BBC's 14-day forecast has overall conditions including and hourly estimate of temperature, wind direction, wind speed and UV range.
Click the blue-text link to go to the forecast. The location is already built into the links.
Sat Nav PR8 1RY
For links to other travel and route planning web sites, click the 'Getting there' tab