Geopark Festival

The Geopark Festival is taking place around the Bay from 25th - 31st May 2024. This week-long festival allows you to get under the surface of the Geopark, discovering the essence of the English Riviera, our culture and our history. And this year, it's bigger and better than ever with the introduction of our NEW Geopark Discovery Experiences!

Discover our festival programme of extraordinary experiences taking place across Torquay, Paignton and Brixham. Why not wake up with sunrise yoga and finish the day with Mussels and Prosecco Sunset Boat Cruise? Join us on a beach to sing sea shanties, or enjoy a full-day coastal plein air painting workshop. Scroll down to see the full events list at the bottom of this page.

We invite you to visit our UNESCO Geopark, with its vibrant urban buzz, great local food and drink, relaxing seaside locations and spectacular coastline which is alive with wildlife and sealife.

Bring a friend to share the experience. Then when you return home, tell your family and friends you have witnessed ‘One of Earth’s extraordinary places”!

What is a Geopark?

And how did we become one? Well, the designation was awarded in 2007 because our landscape has awe-inspiring rock formations and geological stories to tell. Above all, it’s an area where people live, work and are able to enjoy the Geopark. Today, there are about 200 Geoparks in the world.

We have a distinctive landscape. In fact, when Napoleon was captured after the Battle of Waterloo, he was brought to the English Riviera on a British destroyer en route to the South Atlantic. On seeing our rocks, it’s claimed he uttered: ‘Quelle bon pays’ (what a beautiful country) as the vista reminded him of the French Riviera!

Our rocks were formed 400 million years ago, a time known as the Devonian period, named after Devon before even dinosaurs roamed the Earth. 

Our Geopark has a 22-mile coastline with 20 beaches and the highest concentration of blue flags in the country. It’s this coastline which inspires and influences everything that we do today.

We want to share this story with you at our Geopark Festival which takes place between 25^th -31st May by offering experiences which will help you to discover and appreciate, why this area is so special.

• Do you know Kents Cavern, at 2 million years old, is the oldest home in Britain where the first Britons found shelter 500,000 years ago?
• Do you know our towering cliffs provide a safe harbour for Brixham’s fishing fleet, which has grown into one of the most important in the country?  
• Do you know that thanks to our rocks, Babbacombe has the highest promenade in Britain. It’s also why we have the highest lighthouse in Britain (although it’s actually the smallest lighthouse in the country!)?
• Do you know the English Riviera Geopark is one of the sunniest places in the UK, enjoying over 1700 hours of sunshine per year, which encourages rare plants and wildlife to thrive?
• And do you know the World’s best-selling novelist, Agatha Christie, was born and lived in our Geopark? 

In fact, when in 2015, UNESCO added the UNESCO Global Geopark programme to its other major initiatives World Heritage Sites, Biosphere Reserves and Cities of Culture, we became recognised around the World as one of UNESCO's 2,000 strong family of other amazing places like Stonehenge, Australia's Sunshine Coast and the Great Wall of China.

It’s for all these reasons our UNESCO Global Geopark is:

‘One of Earth’s Extraordinary Places’