Subsequent to submitting a feasibility report for a festival in Hull in 2007, Unique Events created Freedom Festival, an exciting new festival intended to be an event unique to the city and to Yorkshire celebrating freedom ‘in all its forms’.

Although Britain’s largest county has a rich variety of local festivals: literature, film, music, etc., there is no single large-scale cultural festival and Unique identified a major opportunity to create an annual event, which would resonate both locally and regionally. With a limited time-frame and budget, a pilot project was launched in 2008 with the first full-scale Freedom Festival beginning in the summer of 2009.

As the UK’s ‘city of freedom’, Hull rounded off summer 2008 with the one day pilot event on Saturday 30 August, marking the 250th anniversary of the birth of William Wilberforce, Hull’s most famous son.
The main entertainment focused on the Queens Gardens with three stages, a silent disco and street theatre performances, a pop concert in Queen Victoria Square and with family entertainment in Trinity Square. Unique assembled a diverse range of companies from central and Southern France, Barcelona and Holland and worked with local organisations including The Warren, Viking Radio, the BBC and funders Hull City Council.

Unique then raised the bar in 2009 and a much more ambitious 3-day Freedom Festival was produced. Scheduled for September to coincide with the start of the ‘Clipper Round the World Yacht Race’, the Freedom Festival weekend was hailed huge success, welcoming over 150,000 people to Hull city centre and generating in excess of £9m for the local economy.

Headlining artists Florence and the Machine closed an incredible weekend of music in Queen’s Gardens, featuring the very best in local talent presented by BBC Humberside’s Raw Talent, an evening of pure pop pleasure with local radio station Viking FM and indie delights with Love Music Hate Racism.

A spectacular fire installation located in the forgotten Fruitmarket area of Hull was the star of the show. French street theatre company Carabosse transformed the dark empty streets in to beautiful hub of fire and music.

The Freedom Festival/Clipper weekend 2009 has collected numerous tourism and industry awards.