Our programmes and festivals bring together partners, artists and communities to explore big ideas and create experiences that excite and entertain. We take over Leicester’s city centres with superb street theatre, incredible performances, live music, and jaw-dropping outdoor shows that you’ll be talking about for years to come.
A network providing support and development opportunities to creative practitioners and cultural professionals in Leicester. The Impact Network for Creatives (INC) aims to help people demonstrate their impact in the cultural sector and build their resilience.
Journeys Festival International was first delivered in Leicester in 2013 and since then has hosted regular editions in Manchester and Portsmouth too. With this festival, we create a platform for artists from sanctuary seeking backgrounds, a showcase to share artistic talent, community cultural exchanges and incredible live events.
Re/action Festival celebrates Creativity for the Climate, with a focus on people and communities coming together to make small changes that add up to a big difference. With pop-up performances, exhibitions and installations the festival helps us to learn how to re/wind our environmental impact. Exploring themes of recycling, sustainability and stretching the creative boundaries, Re/action festival aims to act as an inspiration for the new generations.
The Liberty EU programme brought together 12 cultural partners from 10 countries, partners with passion and commitment. Commissioning new art work and performances featuring young artists from across Europe with international project exchange opportunities at the heart of the programme.
Liberty UK Festival was a pop-up, roaming festival exploring the themes of freedom, democracy, solidarity and unity. Delivering four festivals, in Leicester (2020 and 2021), Halton (2021) and Corby (2022), Liberty UK championed positive social action through long-term engagement projects. With participants developing projects that featured as part of Creative Europe funded commissions, delivering workshops and campaigns about the fragility of social and political freedoms whilst also gaining event management experience.
From 2010 - 2020, Night of Festivals roamed across the country to stun audiences with a huge variety of art forms and carnival events which focused on celebrating freedom and democracy. Night of Festivals was a platform for innovative artists and popped-up in Nottingham, London 2012 Olympics, Boston, Slough, Barking, Hounslow, Leicester, and the South Bank in London. Over its 10 year history, Night of Festivals delivered 18 festival events and worked with local communities to provide substantial opportunities for deeper creative engagement.
A Buzzing Weekend of Climate-Conscious Creativity – Saturday 26 & Sunday 27 July 2025
Two jam-packed days of performance, creativity, and climate-conscious activity saw Leicester’s city centre come alive for this year’s Re/action Festival. With Jubilee Square, Humberstone Gate, Silver Street, and Town Hall Square transformed into vibrant hubs of climate-conscious creativity, the festival offered a joyful mix of powerful performances, playful activities, and hands-on ways to imagine a more sustainable future.
Journeys Festival International 10 - 12 October 2025.
Three days of immersive art installations, inspiring films, hilarious comedy, and powerful storytelling filled Leicester city centre for this year’s Journeys Festival International. We celebrated diversity, migration and the journeys that shape us—inviting audiences to listen, uncover new perspectives, and find connection in our shared humanity.
This year we journeyed back to the heart of our festival, working with communities to celebrate Leicester as an international and diverse city. We presented work from local and international artists that embraces different world cultures and encourages us to celebrate our different journeys together. The festival featured hilarious comedy shows, creative family workshops, intricate installations and beautiful exhibitions.
Images by Pete Martin Photography
It was a buzzing weekend - with lots of creative activities and shows celebrating Creativity For The Climate including some fantastic bee-related shows!
Images by Pete Martin Photography and Art Reach.
On 22 and 23 July 2023, we started the summer holidays in Leicester with our 11th edition of Journeys Festival International, celebrating diversity and exploring migration with world-class performances of national and international artists.
Image Credits: Guy Walsh Photography and Pete Martin Photography, with a few images from Art Reach.
As the UK’s first Festival of Sanctuary, it was fitting that the 10th annual Journeys Festival International began with the re-awarding of the ‘Festival of Sanctuary’ title which is granted every three years by the national City of Sanctuary organisation. The festival which ran from 12 - 14 August also featured the finale of the three-year long Creative Europe funded programme Liberty EU, which has also been exploring cultural connections and creativity across borders, but with a particular focus on young artists. This year’s Journeys Festival International was a perfect place to celebrate and share some of the fabulous projects and commissioned work created by the Liberty EU partners.
Images credits: Chris Patrick Photography, Pete Martin Photography and Art Reach
Rush by Southpaw Dance Company, produced by Pinwheel formed part of the Liberty EU Finale celebrations on August 13th 2022. Rush was a large-scale outdoor spectacle of street theatre, featuring a cast of local people alongside the incredibly powerful performance skills of Southpaw Dance Company.
Developed to include stories from local people, Rush explored the challenges and hardships we face as a society, providing an outlet for everyday frustrations and culminating in a huge release of energy, creativity and celebration of Leicester’s communities.
Image credits: Chris Patrick Photography and Art Reach
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