The annual Stroud Festival of Wonder held in November each year is designed to inspire wonder in an age of exhaustion. It offers a weekend of free activities centred around 5 spectacular circus performances in the church at the centre of the town.

This free weekend has proved a huge success for attendees of all ages with other events including dance, comedy, magic and music. Over 2,000 attend each year and support comes from over 100 volunteers from both churches and community groups. It is truly a wonderful and deeply spiritual weekend.
 
Who we are:

The Festival is run by Christian event charity Ignition Gloucestershire. Ignition is an inter-church organisation, formed in 2006, which seeks to draw churches and community groups together to curate exceptional events which have a spiritual core. The Festival of Wonder core team is made up of trustees from Ignition and a small group of team leaders who have particular skills and who make the festival happen.
 

The project:

The Festival of Wonder's vision is 'to awaken the wonder of the Eternal God in the spiritually curious through innovative performance art'.

Its mission is 4-fold:

Share
the love, life and wisdom of Christ, encouraging all on their spiritual journey;

Raise
curiosity in people of all ages to wonder, joy, peace and hope in the spiritual path;

Show
that church buildings can be used in a variety of creative ways to reach local  communities, bringing the church and different communities of all faiths and none  together in partnership and challenging the sacred/secular divide;

Encourage
churches to flourish in their mission of living out the gospel in new, imaginative ways.

We do this though developing partnerships to enable:

the coming together of innovative performance artists (particularly circus artists) in sacred buildings, creating a melting pot of wonder that opens the door to the love of God;

radical hospitality, drawing in and building up a socially mixed worshipping community whose members journey together and experience wonder that challenges and changes their world;

the offering of support to other churches in Gloucestershire to use their sacred buildings for innovative performance art.

The Festival began in 2022 and the 4th Festival took place in November 2025. 2026 wlll be a fallow year for the main Festival to develop the trustee's vision of developing smaller community-based events using local talent to build an inclusive and spiritual community, with another main festival scheduled for November 2027.