Award winning festival in full swing celebrating cultural diversity across Liverpool

A multi-award winning celebration of culture and diversity is taking place to venues across Liverpool for the next few weeks.

Now in its 9th year, BlackFest is a month-long celebration of Black arts and cultural diversity in Liverpool, set to feature music, spoken word, visual arts, theatre, workshops, cooking and more.

Following a successful launch event at SoundYard earlier this month, the festival is now taking in a programme of events running across Liverpool venues until 30th October 2025.

From music and theatre to comedy and dance, the festival has been curated to amplify and celebrate Black and minority artistic expression, showcasing the rich talent from under-represented communities that exist in Liverpool and beyond.

The festival aims to educate, empower and improve equality in the arts and has been praised as one of the most innovative showcases in the city.

BlackFest’s acclaimed Rhythms Night is set for a triumphant return to District on 25th September with a dynamic showcase blending rock and punk with soulful singer songwriters, featuring headliner Third Kulture alongside KingFast, Mina and Rafaela.

The Capstone Theatre will then host a Spoken Word Night on 3rd October featuring Dionne Simpson, Sabiya, Janoma, and Bluboy, breaking intergenerational curses to dark witty, cynical, morbid humour and covering themes of abuse, race, culture and identity.

Monday 6th October will see a Visual Arts Workshop at Granby Winter Garden hosted by Nina Edge – a renowned local visual artist, who works in clay paint and mixed media – who will explore patterned work with various materials. Two days later on 8th October, Curtis Watt will also host an arts workshop at the same venue, this time exploring creative writing, storytelling, poetry and spoken word.

2025 is the 150th anniversary of the birth of Black British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. To mark the milestone, Tayo Aluko & Friends CIC in partnership with BlackFest and Liverpool Hope University are holding a Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Day Festival on Saturday 11th October at Hope University’s creative campus. The day will include some of Coleridge-Taylor’s works for orchestra, chorus, chamber ensembles and soloists and Tayo Aluko’s play, Coleridge-Taylor Of Freetown.

On 13th October, the third visual arts workshop at Granby Winter Garden of the programme will take place as audiences are invited to join Liverpool 8 resident and international artist, Robert Awork, who works in 3D modelling with heritage and archive, as he delves into the intersection of technology and community, preserving heritage where best serves its purpose.

Shakespeare North Playhouse will play host to the festival’s Scratch Night on Tuesday 14th October, as artists Shak, Chelsey and Resila bring exciting experimental new works using their disciplines and theatre to bring their stories to life.

Cooking workshops have become a mainstay of the festival in recent years and 2025 is no different as the award-winning Baytree return on 22nd October to Granby Street Market with cooking demonstrations to improve access to healthy, nutritious food; helping individuals and families develop skills in cooking and nutrition and to reduce food waste.

A comedy showcase at Royal Court Studios on Saturday 25th October will feature Oldhamer and honorary Scouser, Che Burnley. In the last few years Che has established his own showcase show in Edinburgh and Liverpool, provided tour support for the legendary Reginald D Hunter, written his own solo shows and still found time to gig across the country.

Rounding off an incredible line-up on Thursday 30th October will be the festival’s multi-arts closing ceremony at Invisible Wind Factory.

In collaboration with the Afro Fashion Show UK, this event is a vibrant mix of culture, creativity, and community. The event will be a dynamic celebration of contemporary fashion, live music, art, skating, stalls and delicious food. A fashion show and live music from Yilly + Friends, Bluboy, KingFast, Mina, Rafaela, Aliune Samb + Friends, Sandstone Silver, Drebal, LeeTz and Remée. Also featuring Katumba Afro Brazilian Drumming company, MD Creatives Dance troop and beats on the decks from ONYX TBH.

Already this month the festival has hosted: a transformative dance workshop exploring identity, resistance, and rhythm through movement and poetry hosted by Akeim Toussaint; an inspiring dialogue with author, educator, artist activist Malik Al Nasir hosted by Dr Rebecca Loy; a day focused on wellbeing and communityconnection with an ancestral indigenous nutrition workshop; and a free lunchtime concert at The Tung Auditorium.