Top things to do in Wakefield in 2025

Opening early 2025, WX is the city’s new home for work time and free time, combining casual food and drink with remarkable encounters with innovation, craft and creativity. Enjoy coffee and cake, street food and beer, music, exhibitions and much more! Upcoming exhibitions include Sentinel, a beautiful light installation inspired by the district’s rich coal mining heritage, and Ship of the Gods which links Wakefield’s boat-building heritage to the Norse myth of Skidbladnir (a magical shape-shifting vessel large enough to carry all the gods but small enough to fold up and fit inside a pocket).

Coming in early 2025, the National Coal Mining Museum presents an all-new, breathtaking experience! Using cutting-edge digital technology, visitors will travel through time meeting mining characters from across the centuries. Explore a historic tunnel from ground level and experience the atmosphere, surroundings, sights and sounds of life underground from Victorian times right up to the 1970s. The new tunnel is fully accessible, too, so everyone can take part in the adventure.

The Rhubarb Festival returns! Celebrate everyone’s favourite pink vegetable in style on 21-13 February 2025. The food and drink market returns so you can sample and purchase local and regional delights, including gins, jams, pickles, cheese, baked goods and more! Families will love the variety of workshops on offer at the Rhubarb Festival, and the array of children activities available and lively street entertainment. Expect a whole new programme of chef demos and expand your culinary skills. Finally, extend your stay with the Rhubarb Food & Drink Trail around the city, showcasing restaurants and bars putting on rhubarb themed food and drink throughout the weekend!

Yorkshire Sculpture Park‘s new exhibition, Tony Wade: Keepers of Time opens on 15 February 2025 and runs until 27 July 2025. The exhibition celebrates the majesty of trees, time beyond our lifespans, mindfulness and nature connectedness. It presents a series of intricate drawings created over the last year as part of Tony Wade’s project documenting ancient and veteran trees for the Woodland Trust’s Ancient Tree Inventory.

Image courtesy of Tony Wade.

Opening 8 March 2025, this new exhibition at The Hepworth Wakefield presents the work of one of Britain’s foremost ceramicists,
Elizabeth Fritsch. The exhibition will bring together over 100 works made between the 1970s and 2013, exploring Fritsch’s extraordinary forms, techniques and influences across four decades of her career.

Image © Elizabeth Fritsch, courtesy of Adrian Sassoon Gallery

Connect to Castleford’s ancient history at Castleford Roman Festival!
Taking place on 31 May 2025, it’ll be a great chance for history buffs and wannabe archaeologists – large and small – to explore the town’s Roman heritage, with a a Roman-themed market, demonstrations, family activities, entertainment, street food and more.

Pontefract’s WheelFest and Ropergate 1940s Day take place together on 14 June 2025. WheelFest is a car meeting with a difference! It’s more than cars, it’s anything with a wheel: vintage, classic, American, performance, custom, emergency vehicles, your own pride and joy, commercial and agricultural, bikes and scooters, and even model railways! Ropergate 1940s sees Ropergate transformed into a 1940s zone with exhibits and entertainment recalling the Blitz spirit.

Pontefract Castle‘s beloved classical event returns! Proms in the Castle is back on 28 June 2025. Enjoy a magnificent evening of music and light as the team proudly present the West Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra. Bring along friends and loved ones to listen to moving melodies as the sun goes down over the Castle. The settle in for the grand fireworks finale to round off the evening!

The extravaganza that is Armed Forces Day is returning to Pontefract Park on 6 July 2025. A day of celebration, Armed Forces Day is a real opportunity for the people of the Wakefield District to come together to say a big thank you to our military personnel and their families, along with our Veterans and Cadet Forces.
Last year’s event saw an exciting free fall parachute display, military bands, children’s entertainment and lots of family fun!

Indulge your sweet-tooth with Pontefract Liquorice Festival! Celebrating Pontefract’s historic link with the sweet treat, Pontefract Liquorice Festival returns on 13 July 2025, and is a firm family favourite with something for everyone to enjoy.
Dancers, musicians and street entertainers will be delighting the crowds throughout the day, while sweet lovers can enjoy a tempting array of liquorice food and drink while browsing around food, craft and gift stalls at the colourful street market.

Wakefield Music Collective introduces Clarence Park Festival 2025 – Yorkshire’s longest running free music festival! The original Yorkshire DIY, grass roots festival, Clarence Park Festival is back from  26-27 July 2025 with an eclectic mix of bands and musical styles, local DJs, a bar, delicious food and craft, clothing and jewellery stalls.
Bringing you bands that are local, national and even international, you’ll never know quite what to expect at Clarence – apart from a great day out!

Wakefield Youth Music Theatre presents Guys and Dolls at Theatre Royal Wakefield from 20-30 August 2025! With music and lyrics by Frank Loesser, Guys and Dolls tells the tale of Sky Masterson, a high rolling gambler, who places a bet to win over the heart of Sarah, a puritanical missionary. From the bars of Havana to the streets of Manhattan and set against a backdrop of Prohibition era New York, don’t miss the chance to see one of the best loved musicals ever to have performed on Broadway at Theatre Royal Wakefield this summer.

From 12-21 September 2025, it’s time to peek behind the scenes at some of the district’s best-loved heritage venues with Heritage Open Days! Every September, England’s largest festival of history and culture brings people together to celebrate their heritage, community and history. Stories are told, traditions explored, and histories brought to life. It’s your chance to see hidden places and try out new experiences – and it’s all FREE. Expect fascinating talks, guided tours around some lesser seen spots, free to visit historical buildings and much more.

Make words count with a whole month celebrating words in all their forms. That’s right, WordFest is back for 2025!
Throughout October 2025, local libraries and other venues across the Wakefield district are hosting a huge range of events and activities – from author talks and storytelling to music and film showings, there’ll be something for everyone!

Kick of your Christmas season in style with Light Up! Although it barely seems like 5 minutes have gone by since the last Light Up, the next one will be here before we know it!
Taking place from 21-30 November 2025, you can expect to kick off the festive season in style, with a stunning series of events bathing locations around the district in light and colour, alongside Christmas light switch-ons, walkabout entertainment, street food, live music and loads more festive fun!

The Hepworth Wakefield, in partnership with CLAY Museum of Ceramic Art, Denmark and Kunstsilo, Norway, presents Playing With Fire: Edmund de Waal And Axel Salto (November 2025-May 2026). The exhibition will show Salto’s masterful ceramics alongside a major new installation by de Waal reflecting on Salto’s enduring influence. This is the first major exhibition of acclaimed Danish ceramicist
Axel Salto (1889 – 1961), considered one of the greatest masters of 20th-century ceramic art.

The year wouldn’t be complete without Theatre Royal Wakefield‘s legendary pantomime! In 2025, it’s Jack and the Beanstalk (25 November 2025-4 January 2026): the story of a boy, a cow, magic beans and a fearsome giant gets the Wakefield treatment that you’ve come to know and love. With a brand new script, glittering sets, glamorous baddies and a dame that’s unmatched, there’s no wonder that Wakefield’s very own pantomime never disappoints!