Etruria Canals Festival is the area's largest celebration of canals and canal heritage.  B arts work with the Etruria Canals Festival Group to help stage the event and curate an arts and performance programme.  In 2018 the festival theme was Ingenious: a celebration of arts and engineering.

The festival commissioned three arts projects for the 2018 event: Rob Harrington's Bone and Flint Boats saw the creation of over 100 ceramic steam boats that were decorated by festival attendees before being launched onto the canal.  The Bone Ensemble created an original promenade performance, A Stoke Scherazade from Brindly to Basra and Back Again, exploring the similiaries between the two canal cities of Stoke and Basra, and Natalie Brown created Textured Routes, bunting inspired by the canal networks.  Alongside this Ian Douglas story teller ran sessions around canal folklore onboard his narrowboat, and on the children's field, walkabout performer Toby White aka Gary the Snail challenged festival goers to get into slow paced canal life.

Image: Natalie Willatt