Coming up in 2025
New festivals, year-long celebrations and welcome returns
Welcome to the ninth edition of my newsletter and the last one of 2024, all about arts festivals. A very warm hello to my new subscribers and to all my existing subscribers.
As we turn into a new year, here’s a round-up of what to look forward to in 2025.
Despite the doom and gloom of 2024 with hundreds of festivals cancelled, postponed or reduced in scale across the world, we can look forward to biennials, triennials and even a quadrennial or two returning alongside new festivals.
So, what’s new for 2025 in the UK?
In March, English Heritage joins forces with Aardman Animations for the first online Animated Histories Film Festival. Y Lle Da/The Good Place is a new bilingual music, arts and literature festival in Tenby, south west Wales. And inspired by the county’s rich industrial heritage and creativity, Derbyshire Makes is an annual festival taking place across six towns.
In the summer, look out for India’s Serendipity Arts Festival visiting Birmingham for the first time, hosted by Birmingham City University. Beach of Dreams is a UK-wide outdoors coastal arts festival, and book early for the inaugural SXSW London ‘where creativity, culture and technology converge’. Blaze Arts and the Burnley Cultural Education Partnership launch a new youth arts festival in Lancashire and there’s also the first Chester Photo Festival.
And in September it’s a welcome return of the annual Encounters Film Festival in Bristol.
Year-long celebrations in the UK and Europe
Bradford steps forward as the 2025 UK City of Culture featuring new festivals such as the New Music Biennial and launches with an open-air spectacular event - RISE.
The European 2025 Capital of Culture designation is shared between Chemnitz in Germany and Nova Gorica and Gorizia in Slovenia, the latter being the first European Capital of Borderless Culture. Festivals already announced include the Hat Festival for street art, and the SCHLiNGEL International Film Festival for children and young audiences in Chemnitz, and Angels’ festival exploring cultural environments, languages and traditions, and the Trieste Film Festival in Nova Gorica and Gorizia.
In March, Wandsworth takes over as London’s Borough of Culture.
Glasgow celebrates its 850th anniversary as a city with a year-long celebration featuring numerous festivals including January’s Celtic Connections folk, roots and world music festival and the St Mungo Festival, celebrating the city’s patron saint.
It’s the 250th anniversary of the birth of author Jane Austen, so Pride and Prejudice Day at Jane Austen’s House in Hampshire turns into the Pride and Prejudice Festival in January.
As I’ve mentioned before, it’s a big year for railway anniversaries. Railway 200 celebrates the 200th anniversary of the modern railway in the UK, and in the North East of England, S&DR200 is a nine-month international festival celebrating the first journey on the Stockton and Darlington Railway. This builds on a number of capital investments timed for the anniversary including Hopetown Darlington, Locomotion in County Durham and the Railway Museum in York.
There will be a special season of events marking the 250th anniversary of The Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London.
Biennials, triennials and quadrennials across the world
There are plenty of art biennials and triennials worldwide to look forward to including the Sharjah Biennial, Berlin Biennale, Taipei Biennale, Brazil’s Estalo Bienal do Mercosul, Helsinki Biennial, Chile’s SACO1.2 Biennial of Contemporary Art, Autostrada Biennale in Kosovo, Ireland’s biennial, EVA International, the Hawai’i Triennial, Japan’s Aichi Triennale and Norway’s triennial, Bergen Assembly.
In the UK, 2025 sees the return of Liverpool Biennial, Coventry Biennial and London Art Biennale.
For architecture, public art, design and photography, you can choose from the Venice Architecture Biennale, the 20th anniversary of the FotoArt Festival in Bielsko-Biała, Poland, the Boston Public Art Triennial, Florence Biennale of Art and Design, and the 70th anniversary of the Ljubljana Bienniale of Graphic Arts in Slovenia.
In the UK, we can look forward to the British Ceramics Biennial, the London Design Bienniale, and two textiles biennials, the British Textiles Biennial in Lancashire and Woven in Kirklees, Yorkshire.
Other biennials, triennials and quadrennials covering a range of artforms include Norway’s Momentum, this edition celebrates sound and relations between the natural and cultural worlds, Walk&Talk Bienal de Artes in Portugal, the Vilnious Biennial of Performance Art in Lithuania, and Performa in New York. Good luck to my friend Fanny Martin who is the Executive Director of 2025’s Music Biennale Zagreb in Croatia.
In the UK, mark your calendars for Manchester International Festival, IF: Milton Keynes International Festival, and the quadrennial Estuary Festival showcasing the Thames Estuary region.
UK Festivals: News
The saga of the Summerhall venue continues with some good news as its operators announce they can now pay artists from 2024’s summer Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Edinburgh’s festival of puppetry, visual theatre and animated film, Manipulate Festival has revealed a smaller programme for its 2025 edition due to ‘stagnating funding’ and ‘spiralling costs’.
South Hams Festival, a new festival planned for South Devon in summer 2025 has been postponed to 2026.
The Association of Independent Festivals (AIF) extends its skills development training with new opportunities for Welsh music festivals. AIF’s John Rostron appears on the Two Promoters One Pod: Festivals in Crisis episode.
Outdoor Arts UK announces Samantha Nurse as their new Associate Director.
DaDaFest International has revealed the theme for the festival in March – RAGE: A quiet riot!
Cheltenham Festivals announced the winner of their FameLab International Final.
Manchester Histories Festival is looking for a Community Development Officer for Rocket 2030. Hurry as the deadline is Monday 6th January. Harrogate International Festivals are advertising for a Music and Events Manager. Deadline is Wednesday 8th January. IF: Milton Keynes International Festival is recruiting for a Festival Coordinator with a deadline of Wednesday 15th January. Wimbledon Music Festival wants to appoint an Artistic Director.
Unity Theatre is inviting artist applications for its Up Next Festival. Deadline is Saturday 11th January.
Glasgow International shares documentation about its 2024 edition.
Healing Arts Scotland revealed the evaluation findings from its inaugural festival in 2024.
More reports available via Spirit of 2012 including the Events Data Aggregation Report for 2021/2022 covering the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games, Coventry 2021 City of Culture and UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK.
International Festivals: News
Naomi Beckwith from Guggenheim Museum will curate Documenta 16.
International Curator Koyo Kouoh will organise the 2026 Venice Biennale.
Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi of Sharjah Biennal topped Art Review’s Power 100.
Barcelona’s International Festival of Creativity, Art and Digital Design, otherwise known as OFFF, has rebranded for its 25th anniversary.
The Paris 2024 Cultural Olympiad Evaluation report, authored by my friend Dr. Beatriz Garcia is now available.
The European Festivals Summit has revealed a summary of discussions from its 2024 edition.
Another music festival, Dreamville, calls it quits after its 2025 edition.
Not surprisingly, January is a quieter month for festivals.
UK Festivals: Highlights
The annual Viking tradition of Up Helly Aa takes place in Shetland, Scotland.
The 20th Out To Lunch Festival happens in Belfast.
London’s Old Diorama Arts Centre in Euston hosts the One Roof Festival including the 3rd Annual Arts & Homelessness Summit. Also in the capital is the London Short Film Festival.
The Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester stages the RNCM Strings Festival and the RNCM International Brass Band Festival.
Manchester Metropolitan University’s Future Flares Festival presents a curated programme of politically engaged performances, talks and workshops. Just down the road at HOME is the Push Festival showcasing creative talent from across the North West of England.
Bristol Light Festival returns.
International Festivals: Highlights
TradFest, celebrating its 20th festival is Ireland’s leading trad and folk festival.
Two festivals in Australia with the Sydney Festival and Perth’s Fringe World Festival.
New York hosts the Winter Jazzfest, the 20th UNDER THE RADAR annual festival of experimental theatre, and The Fire This Time Festival providing opportunities for talented early career playwrights of African and American descent.
Film Festivals include the International Film Festival in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, USA.
Literature festivals include the Jaipur Literature Festival in India and another festival celebrating its 20th edition is the Hay Festival Cartagena de Indias in Columbia.
2025 marks the Art Deco Centennial and Miami Beach plays host to the Art Deco Weekend.
Singapore Art Week is the biggest celebration of visual arts in Singapore.
Ras Al Khaimah Art in Dubai fuses the modern and the ancient.
This year’s DesignTO festival is the 15th anniversary of Canada’s largest celebration of design, taking place in Toronto.
This edition of Amsterdam’s Brandhaarden festival gives an in-depth look into the work of Marlene Monteiro Freitas, the figurehead of the new Portuguese dance.
And finally - HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL MY READERS!
P.S. If you liked this post, please click on the heart at the bottom or top of this post. It helps others to discover PalmerSquared on Festivals and I’ll be very thankful.
See you next month for more festival news, stories, and insights.
Plenty to look forward to there! Happy New Year Helen.