Bristol's Festival Scene

Bristol festivals draw huge crowds year on year - from commercially run events like Tokyo World Festival in Eastville park to free (and community minded) events like Trinity Garden Party and St. Paul's carnival. There are a string of multi-venue festivals (in the style of Sonar in Barcelona) around the Stokes Croft area including Simple Things and Rave on Avon. Simple Things has expanded somewhat in the last few years and taken over the city's flagship venue, Colston Hall.

As well as music festivals, Bristol's deep historical connection to street art is celebrated in day events like Upfest. Centred around the recently created (and unofficial) street art district - North Street - you can spend the day watching apartment blocks getting a new lick of paint from head to toe. Truly a festival not to be missed!

Buy tickets for festival events in Bristol

Our recent festival recommendations

Another Satellite of Love literary communion beneath the Loco arches! This month they host award-winning spoken word artist Desree, whose close-focus storytelling of sacrifice, identity and belonging in Black British life has carried her from Glastonbury residencies all the way to the Royal Albert Hall. Plus local support, a community poem and plenty of space for new voices – grab a mic slot while you can. Satellite of Love Presents: Desree at Loco Klub.

Fresh Spike Island co-commission bringing Commaret’s non-linear short cinema experiments to the UK for the very first time. Mijitas offers two poetic yet political views of women navigating the gendered realities of cleaning and sex work, melding dashes of magical realism with improvised documentary intimacy in Commaret’s own inimitable style. Catch it until 6th September. EXHIBITION Tohé Commaret: Mijitas at Spike Island.

Free entry / PWYC screening of this heart-wrenching and often humorous portrait of Palestinian life in Lebanon’s Ein el-Helweh refugee camp. In Mahdi’s video diary, the World Cup sits next to PLO training, and family home movies mix with armed teenage hijinks and war-torn destruction. A World Not Ours is raw dispossession seen through generations of martyrs, exiles and those forced to remain in a land not theirs. FREE SCREENING: A World Not Ours is an intimate, humorous film portrait of three generations of exile in the refugee camp of Ein el-Helweh, in southern Lebanon

Fresh Spike Island co-commission bringing Commaret’s non-linear short cinema experiments to the UK for the very first time. Mijitas offers two poetic yet political views of women navigating the gendered realities of cleaning and sex work, melding dashes of magical realism with improvised documentary intimacy in Commaret’s own inimitable style. Catch it until 6th September. Mijitas is the first exhibition in the UK by Franco-Chilean artist Tohé Commaret,featuring two new moving image commissions, Rosa and Can you hear me? (both 2026).

What our editors say

“| GETTING TO THE FESTIVAL | The festival takes place on a beautiful farm outside of Abergavenny, Wales. 1hrs drive from Bristol. Full address and travel details will be sent to ticket holders closer to the festival.”
From: Come Bye 2026