BlackFest announce packed festival lineup across Liverpool venues

The award-winning organisation is celebrating their recent double prize at the Merseyside Women of the Year Award as well as five years of platforming Black artists across Liverpool and beyond.

This year’s festival programme spans ten venues, showcasing art exhibitions, music nights, spoken word and poetry, theatre shows and much more.

Director of Blackfest, Jubeda Khatun said: “We are thrilled to be celebrating our award win and five years of BlackFest. Liverpool is a vibrant port city with so much to offer from local talent as well as taking pride in welcoming new works into the city from the North West and nationally. There’s so much to choose from over the festival period and there really is something for everyone. And so much of it is free entry too!”

What to expect

The Pierhead show on 24 September will feature acts such as Afrodance Academy bringing AfroAmpiano dance piece and fierce drumming troupe Katumba bringing fusions of UK big beat Carribean Calypso and Carnival of North East Brazil.

Some of the up-and-coming musical talent and poets in the city will also feature on the line-up, including Shak Omar, AMBA, Lumenaates, Bluboy, Pari, as well as returning artists from BlackFest’s nationwide creative pool such as Sarah Louise and Vivi.Local traders will be providing Afrocentric handmade goodies, cards and prints, jewellery and fashion throughout the opening event.

The theatre offering this year features an unflinching and thought-provoking piece from Zimbabwean writer, Mandla Rae at the Unity Theatre on 26^th September, entitled As British as a Watermelon, fresh off a critically acclaimed run at the Edinburgh Fringe.‘Riddims Night’ will be held at the Philharmonic Music Room on 27 September, featuring the likes of young Liverpool rappers P3Lz and Koj, along with singer-songwriter, Shoa Osborne and multi-artist, Tee.

BlackFest’s much-loved spoken word and poetry night returns on 28 September, with The Hope Street Theatre showcasing a range of local poets and wordsmiths, who will also take part in a post-show discussion following their performances with an open mic for audiences to participate in too. The night will feature Spoken word poets, Samuel Ameiza-Djabli AKA ChiefUncleSam, Tahja Edwards and will also welcome talent from Manchester Poetry Place, Gabriel Oyediwura and Cherelle Anne.

Granby Winter Garden will welcome BlackFest on World Heart Day on 29 September for an educational workshop with themes of environmental responsibility and sustainability, in collaboration with BayTree Cookery Academy. BayTree will explore how to reduce single use plastics and create dishes accessible to low income families, whilst B4BioDiversity will be holding a beeswax candle workshop.

Many more events will take place, including screenings at FACT and activist panels at Liverpool Museum.

More information

Many of the festival events are free to attend and those wanting to attend all the ticketed events can save up to £50 by purchasing a Festival Pass.

BlackFest 2022 runs from 24 September until the 29 October and tickets for all events are available now via Eventbrite.For more information on BlackFest please visit blackfest.co.uk or email [email protected].