We are delighted to share the news, for those of you who haven’t heard, that the Lakes International Comic Art Festival (LICAF) will be returning to Kendal in 2026, and this year’s festival will take place from Friday 2 to Sunday 4 October. Some of you may recall that LICAF took place in Kendal from 2013 to 2021 and attracted thousands of comics fans to the town each year. One of the key features of the festival is our Windows Trail, bringing comic art into the businesses throughout the town and we are excited to be bringing this initiative back in 2026. It always proved hugely popular with businesses and the public, increasing the festival’s presence across Kendal and leading to higher footfall for the businesses involved.

2026 is the 80th anniversary of the National Cartoonists’ Society of the USA, one of our major overseas partners. The NCS has some very famous members (past and present) including Charles Schulz (Peanuts), Jim Davis (Garfield), Bill Watterson (Calvin & Hobbes) to name just a few… we are incredibly lucky that this year the NCS will be providing some fantastic artwork to feature in the windows of participating stores.

We would like to ask for businesses to register an interest in being part of the Windows Trail in 2026. All you would have to do would be to give over a space in your window where our team would install some comic art, and a small (A4) page describing the work. This would normally take place 2 weeks before the festival and the artwork would be removed the week after the festival has taken place (unless of course you would wish to have it in your window for longer).

It doesn’t matter if your window space is small or large.. as per the attached examples we can scale the artwork up or down as appropriate. You would also then feature in our Windows Trail map which is distributed online and in our festival programme, and there will be competitions for the best window. We are also open to the possibility of businesses hosting some comic-themed events over the festival weekend, for example one of our guest artists may wish to engage in a public facing activity in your store.

Here is a link to the form to apply to take part https://forms.gle/yKbzuJYC3MmZ2mrAA

Once you have completed the form a member of the LICAF team will be in contact. Should you have any questions about the Windows Trail project, please contact carole@comicartfestival.com