With another challenging year ahead, we’re working on mapping the 2021 season for outdoor arts festivals, events and performances.

Hopefully, we are moving towards the easing of lockdown across the cultural sector and the opportunity to schedule safely-delivered performances again; the government Roadmap offers some light at the end of the tunnel.

Already, many outdoor festivals, programmes have announced their intention to go ahead this year, if restrictions allow – a few have rescheduled to later in the year, some have moved online or and others are working on adapting their programmes.

Mapping 2021
This Outdoor Arts mapping exercise is intended to ensure that we all have the latest scheduling information for 2021 – of course, with the knowledge that circumstances may change. We also hope that this will help to inspire confidence for other organisations, festivals and events by giving clear accurate examples of intentions to plan safely and with confidence.

We will start with those who programme and produce outdoor arts events. We have reached out to over 135 festivals and events to invite them to attend a ‘mapping meeting’ on 26 Mar at 12noon. OAUK will then collate and share that information with the wider sector and use it for advocacy purposes and to populate our listings.

Carnival / Mela / LightNights
This meeting – focussing on the Street Arts / Outdoor Arts programme – is the first of several; we’re planning further meetings to look specifically at Carnival, Mela and LightNight events very soon.

Music Festivals 
Unless there’s a particularly strong outdoor arts performance element, we’re not focussing on music festivals, as there are other organisations covering that sector very well; visit:
Association of Independent Festivals | The Festival Calendar | Association of Festival Organisers

Who did we miss?
If you’re an outdoor arts-based festival or programmer and you’ve not received an invite to the meeting, firstly, please accept our apologies and secondly, drop us a line: info@outdoorartsuk.org