Salt & Tar

Salt and Tar is a multi-use outdoor event site on the canalside at Washington Parade in Bootle, operating as a street-food and bar village and, for larger shows, as a standing concert arena. It is best known for the Salt and Tar Music Weekender, which in 2025 drew almost 12,000 people to Bootle across the weekend and was headlined by Billy Ocean, The Sugababes, The K's and Ocean Colour Scene, alongside local acts including Keyside, The Solaas and Megan Wyn. Sefton Council put the 2025 edition's value to the local economy at just under GBP 1 million.

The site did not open for the 2026 season. Regeneration works at Bootle Strand, which the council says include an expansion of the permanent Salt and Tar venue, took the Music Weekender along the canal to the Lock and Quay event site at 2 Irlam Road for 13-17 August 2026 — an edition the council described as on the same scale and with the same capacity as before.

Sefton Council states that it plans to relaunch Salt and Tar back at its home site in 2027. No capacity figure is published for the Washington Parade site itself, and the operator's own website is behind a bot challenge that serves no readable content.