North By North Western, (NXNW) is the Wigan Festival of Art, Music & Literature, founded in 2006 and currently preparing for its third and boldest year. It is a collection of over 15 local creatives who share the ambition to push forward and pioneer Arts in the Borough.

NXNW festival began as a vision to celebrate and spotlight the creative rumblings under the surface of Wigan’s average town exterior.

The Wigan ‘Renaissance’ began in 2003 with the Lux Club tapping into the zeitgeist of a new generation of Wiganer. Desire for new and exciting live music, performance poetry, and strange and classic records was both stirred and quelled by the gigs, open mic sets and club nights held by Lupine promotions. The Lux Club was a melting pot from which came new bands, and introduced creatives forming the starting point of collaborations which have continued beyond its demolition. This year also saw John Togher, previously the editor of Bang Your ‘ead ‘ere, a fanzine and guide to the scene, release the first edition of the Mental Virus. This magazine gave voice to the writers and artists of the Lux and beyond who were formerly unheard. This rush of activity built upon the continuing work of the Wigan Music Collective, and preceded new nights such as Cloth Ears, Rendezvous, The Imploding Acoustic Inevitable, Club Underground, The People Under The Stairs and The Wonderful Arty Types Show.

In 2006 Ruth Hesketh started the Wigan Arts Collective, a meeting point for artists and creatives across the borough. This was also the year Anthony Burke approached Lupine Promotions (Sean Doherty and Dylan Harris) and subsequently Anna Smith, Ruth Hesketh, and John Togher, with his proposal for an arts festival to draw this burbling undercurrent to a head, and with their connections NXNW was born.