Good Grief

Good Grief Weston 2023

1–8 May

In May 2023, Weston-super-Mare hosted the first ever in-person Good Grief Festival. Over eight days, the town came together for workshops, performances and grassroots events exploring death, loss and bereavement. Highlights included a ‘Grief Rave’ on the high street, a conversation with author Michael Rosen, and Helen Wheelock’s Forget-Me-Not project, which turned landfill-bound plastic into a meadow of 800 flowers, each a tribute from someone in the community to a person they had loved and lost.

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Produced by Super Culture in collaboration with the University of Bristol and the Weston-super-Mare Community Network, the festival helped kickstart new community groups – from a synchronised swimming squad to a men’s cooking club – and sowed the seeds for further Good Grief Festivals across the UK.

Good Grief Weston 2023 was part of part of a wider programme of research focused on tackling inequities and reducing social isolation in end-of-life care and bereavement, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). You can read the full festival evaluation here.

We were pleased to follow this festival with Good Grief Weston 2024 and Good Grief Weston 2026.

Local resources & organisations

Festival evaluation

Arts Council England blog post