Knutsford Music Festival was launched in 2017 as a community music festival led by Knutsford Town Council. It brings together venues across Knutsford to create a weekend of musical events covering a range of genres, typically across three days.

A series of headline performances take place across the three days organised by the Town Council. The festival also includes a wide range of fringe events hosted by local businesses across the Town Centre which run for the entire three days of the festival.

Broadcaster Mark Radcliffe of BBC Radio 2 and 6 teamed up with Knutsford Town Council in 2018 to present a 3-day folk event ‘Mark Radcliffe presents Folk at the Theatre’ which returned for a second successful year in 2019. The show features internationally acclaimed musicians as well as BBC Folk award nominees and winners. Folk at the Theatre returns in 2021 as one of the main features of the festival.

Another staple event of the festival is the widely popular family-friendly Music on the Moor session which offers families a chance to enjoy a programme of live music from local artists as well as interactive workshops and other fun activities. This event was first produced for the 2018 festival and has become a permanent fixture to the programme ever since, typically held on the Saturday afternoon of the festival weekend.

The festival has featured big names in music in its short life including Dodgy, Miles Hunt of The Wonder Stuff, Thea Gilmore, Virginia Kettle’s Rolling Folk and folk superstar John Smith, with other big names due to appear in the 2025 line-up.