2022 Festival

Established in 1962, the city’s longest-running international arts festival, reimagined and reborn as Belfast International Arts Festival (BIAF) in 2015, is celebrating 60 years with a new extended season of contemporary arts and cultural events.

For six decades the festival has ensured that the residents of Belfast alongside its international visitors have access to the best of world class artists and events from home and abroad.

The 2022 celebrations got off to a spectacular start with a dazzling free outdoor event, Cristal Palace (23-24 April) by French company Transe Express, who transformed Titanic Paddocks, adjacent to Titanic Slipways on the Maritime Mile, into an open-air night-time ballroom complete with an airborne orchestra perched 30 meters atop a giant chandelier, aerial acrobats and sharp-witted characters.

A series of festival events in May includes Between Tiny Cities (6–7 May) at The MAC, an exhilarating hip hop b*boy battle between two dancers, one from Cambodia and one from Australia, and several Talks & Ideas events; the sold out Simon Armitage (4 May), and two intimate events in No Alibis with writers Ayanna Lloyd Banwo and Amanda Smyth (10 May), and Emilie Pine and Audrey Magee (12 May).

Further programme announcements to follow.

Save the dates for our core festival: 5 October – 6 November 2022.

Look back at the history -see Festival Archive