Vintage Computer Festival GB 2026 — Put This in Your Diary (or get AI to do it)
The Vintage Computer Festival GB 2026 is taking place at the North West Computer Museum in Leigh, Lancashire, from Friday 19 to Sunday 21 June 2026. If you have any interest in the history of computing and gaming — and if you’re reading pc-play.com, you probably do — this is worth the trip.
The North West Computer Museum
The museum itself is worth knowing about if you don’t already. Based on the fourth floor of the Grade II listed Leigh Spinners Mill on Park Lane, it’s a hands-on, interactive museum covering computing history from the 1970s to the present day. That means working exhibits — BBC Micros, ZX Spectrums, Commodore 64s, Amigas, early PCs — that you can actually sit down and use, not just look at through glass.
There’s a retro arcade section, a Raspberry Pi workshop area, a VR suite, and a café. Admission is £7. Run by Joe and Helen Kay, it’s been built with the kind of genuine enthusiasm that no amount of funding substitutes for. Reviews consistently mention how welcoming the staff are and how much longer visitors end up staying than they planned.
Opening hours are Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 4pm. The mill has lifts as well as stairs.
The grand opening in June 2023 was presided over by Professor Steve Furber CBE — one of the designers of the original BBC Micro and ARM processor — which tells you something about the calibre of people who take this place seriously.
Why It Matters
There are very few places in the UK where you can walk in off the street and play a working ZX Spectrum, a BBC Micro, or a Commodore Amiga. These machines aren’t just nostalgia objects — they’re the hardware that created the British games industry, trained a generation of developers, and produced some of the most inventive games ever made. Preserving working examples, and making them accessible to people who’ve never seen them, is genuinely important work.
The museum is community-funded and community-run. It doesn’t have a major institution behind it. It runs on the support of visitors, patrons, and donors — and on the donated time of people who care about keeping this history alive.
Support the Museum
If you can’t make it to Leigh in June but want to support what they’re doing, there are three ways:
Patreon — monthly support that helps with running costs.
JustGiving — one-off donations.
Crowdfunder — the original 2021 campaign that helped get the museum off the ground. Still live if you want to contribute directly.
They also accept donations of hardware — if you have old computers, consoles, or peripherals gathering dust, the museum is interested. Contact them via nwcomputermuseum.org.uk.
The North West Computer Museum features in our Manchester computing history piece and our guide to the home computers of the 8-bit era. If you’re planning a visit, the Vintage Computer Festival GB runs 19-21 June 2026 at Leigh Spinners Mill, Park Lane, Leigh, WN7 2LB.