Gateshead's Enchanted Parks, back and even bigger for 2018

Enchanted Parks is NewcastleGateshead Initiative and Gateshead Council’s popular after-dark arts adventure in the atmospheric setting of Saltwell Park.

The annual event, which sees specially commissioned artists transform Gateshead’s Saltwell Park into a magical and mythical wonderland, will run for six nights this winter.

Every year is a new theme and this year it's "The House of Lost and Found"

It takes place between Tuesday 4th December and Sunday 9th.

Here's all we know so far, everything else is tightly underwraps:

"The service we offer is simple. We reunite lost things with their owners. Many things can be lost. An object, a precious possession, a voice, a song, a friend, a love, your marbles. We’ve travelled far to be here. Further than you could imagine. We’ve sought and collected your lost things. We invite you to come and find them and celebrate with us the feeling that comes when two things that have been separate, come together once more."

This is the story of a travelling fair, but not a fair of fast, over-priced rides and candy apples. A fair that has been travelling in one guise or another for centuries. The earliest sightings of the fair were reported in 18th Century Europe, later in the 19th century across the Atlantic and again in the heady days of London in the 1920s.

At the helm is Peter Chevalier, an illusionist and philanthropist who has gathered around him an extended ‘family’ of people who are in some way lost. This weird and wonderful ‘family’ have attracted attention, suspicion and awe wherever they turn up and turn up they do. Overnight they appear, stay for a few days and then disappear. Each fair is different, taking on the quirks and foibles of whatever place they end up, but the story is always the same: what have you lost and how can we help you find it?

But surely it’s not possible for this to be the same Peter Chevalier who began this work hundreds of years ago? How can one man travel across centuries? Can you trust an illusionist? What brings him to Saltwell Park? What lost things does he claim to be returning? What is it that he is searching for? And will he find it

It's an outdoor event so make sure you wrap up warm and have suitable footware.

Snap up tickets before they sell out here -https://www.tickettailor.com/events/enchantedparks