Friends of Victoria Park in Stretford unveils an ambitious new family adventure event

Friends of Victoria Park unveils an ambitious new family adventure as community support helps park dream bigger

Victoria Park Guardians: The Lost Key will transform Stretford’s Victoria Park into a magical family adventure this October – as volunteers behind the park set out an ambitious vision to bring destination-scale community events to Stretford.

Following the incredible support shown to Victoria Park through its crowdfunding campaign earlier this year, the Friends of Victoria Park are preparing to launch one of their most ambitious events yet.

Running from 24–31 October 2026, Victoria Park Guardians: The Lost Key will invite families to step inside an original story created around Victoria Park itself.

The Keeper’s Key is missing, the park’s magic is beginning to change, and families are being recruited to help.

Armed with their adventure booklet collected from the Tea Room, teams will explore the park, meet its mysterious Guardians through the app, solve clues and challenges, uncover pieces of Victoria Park’s history and ultimately attempt to solve the mystery of the Lost Key.

Designed primarily for children aged 3–12 and their families, the self-led adventure can take up to 90 minutes to complete and has been created to encourage families to explore, play and experience the park in a completely different way.

But behind the magic is a much bigger ambition. From saving a community space to making it thrive Earlier this year, the community rallied around Victoria Park through a crowdfunding campaign, demonstrating just how much the park and its community facilities mean to local people.

For the volunteer team, that support was not simply about getting through a difficult moment. It created an opportunity to ask what Victoria Park could become next.

The Friends now want to develop a programme of imaginative events capable of generating income to help sustain activities in the park while bringing more families and visitors into Stretford.

Rather than trying to compete with commercial pumpkin patches, large Halloween attractions and destination parks on size or budget, the team believes Victoria Park can compete on something different: originality, community and a sense of place.

Samantha Seed, Volunteer Event Coordinator at Friends of Victoria Park, said: “When people supported us earlier this year, they gave us more than financial help. They showed us that people genuinely care about what happens here.

“We want to build on that support rather than continually having to ask the community for help. Our ambition is to create events that people are excited to pay to attend, with that income helping us continue the work happening in the park.

“Families will travel to pumpkin patches, Christmas light trails and huge national attractions because they want to give their children an experience and a memory. We started asking ourselves: why shouldn’t something really special happen here in
Stretford too?

“We don’t have acres of commercial attraction or enormous budgets, but we have a beautiful historic park, an amazing community and people prepared to be incredibly creative with it.

“The Guardians is our attempt to show what is possible.”

An adventure that could only happen in Victoria Park.

Rather than placing a generic Halloween attraction inside the park, The Lost Key has been built around Victoria Park itself.

Its paths, gates, gardens, sporting areas, wildlife, community spaces and history become part of the adventure. Families will encounter 13 Guardians along the route, each responsible for a different part of park life. Completing their challenges gradually draws teams deeper into the mystery.

The experience deliberately moves away from traditional Halloween scares. Instead, the emphasis is on autumn, adventure, imagination, discovery and family participation, allowing younger children to enjoy the experience alongside older siblings, parents and grandparents.

And while the adventure can be completed during the daytime, families visiting as autumn daylight fades will see Victoria Park take on a particularly atmospheric backdrop. Bringing people into Stretford. The Friends of Victoria Park hope the event will also demonstrate the role community events can play beyond the park gates.

Their longer-term ambition is to establish Victoria Park as a destination for distinctive family experiences – encouraging visitors to spend time in Stretford, discover the town centre and support surrounding independent businesses.
Samantha added:

“Success for us isn’t simply selling tickets. It’s seeing families walking into Stretford because something brilliant is happening here.

“We want people from outside the area to start asking, ‘What’s happening at Victoria Park this month?’ That’s the ambition.”

Victoria Park Guardians: The Lost Key
Dates: 24–31 October 2026
Location: Victoria Park, Stretford
Recommended ages: 3–12
Duration: Up to 90 minutes
Tickets: From £7
Experience: Explore the park • Solve the clues and challenges • Find the Guardians • Unlock the mystery Prize: Families completing the trail can earn a prize (one prize per ticket).

Book your adventure:

https://bookwhen.com/victoriapark/e/ev-s4z3w-20261024000000?utm_source=chatgpt.com

The Friends of Victoria Park, Stretford is a volunteer-led registered charity (1179731), formed in 2002 to help restore Victoria Park as a safe, welcoming community space.