Festivals & Outdoor Arts

Chinese New Year 2026

Birmingham’s Chinese New Year 20256 Celebrations welcomed the Year of the Horse

Birmingham Weekender 2025

Birmingham Weekender 2025 took over the city between Sat 23 – Mon 25 Aug 2025, with FREE amazing performances, fantastical installations and pop up experiences- with everything from aerial circus acts to Giant Jellyfish!

B-SIDE Hip-Hop Festival 2025

B-SIDE Hip Hop Festival returned in 2025 showcasing the very best Hip-Hop talent from across the pillars of Hip-Hop including Breakin’, Graffiti, DJing and MCing - a celebration of the phenomenon that is Hip Hop right here in Birmingham!

Chinese New Year 2025

Birmingham’s Chinese New Year 2025 Celebrations welcomed the Year of the Snake

Birmingham Weekender 2024

Birmingham Weekender spread free amazing performances across the whole city on the streets and in the sky above the city.

Lunar New Year 2024

Birmingham’s Lunar New Year Celebrations welcomed the Year of the Dragon

B-SIDE Hip-Hop Festival 2024

The popular free annual festival returned celebrating all things hip-hop.

Birmingham Weekender 2023

Our annual arts festival brought together colourful installations and energetic music, dance and theatre performances

B-SIDE Hip-Hop Festival 2023

Birmingham Hippodrome celebrated 50 years at our annual Hip-Hop festival

Lunar New Year 2023

We welcomed the Year of the Rabbit at Birmingham’s Lunar New Year Celebrations

Sharing the Light - Welcome Diwali

We welcomed Diwali with a festival of light featuring breathtaking puppets by Dundu, dhol drummers and dance performances by Sonia Sabri Company and a beautiful Rangoli.

Birmingham Weekender 2022

Birmingham Weekender returned with over 100 free events to enjoy at Bullring & Grand Central, the New Street Station concourse, Birmingham Markets and 1000 Trades Square.

It's Carnival

We brought a collage of carnival colour, dance and the pulsating rhythms of Trinidad to Bullring & Grand Central in Summer 2022

B-SIDE Hip-Hop Festival 2022

Birmingham Hippodrome’s popular free festival returned, celebrating all things Hip-Hop!

SEANCE

For Halloween, our Festivals Team staged Séance, a shipping container experience, that transforms the interior of a 24ft container into a Victorian séance room.

Birmingham Weekender

Birmingham Weekender took over Bullring Grand Central in August 2021.

CVX x B-SIDE ft ONEWAVE

As part of UK City of Culture 2021, our annual B-SIDE Hip-Hop Festival headed to Coventry for an incredible celebration of all things Hip-Hop.

In Memoriam

Luke Jerram’s ceremonial art installation has been created as a memorial to those we have lost in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chinese New Year 2021

We welcomed in the Year of the Ox with a series of specially-commissioned films.

Global Rainbow

Global Rainbow is an ongoing public artwork by renowned Artist, Yvette Mattern, that shared a vision of hope and peace over the New Year period.

Chinese New Year 2020

We welcomed in the Year of the Rat at Birmingham’s Chinese New Year Celebrations.

B-SIDE Hip-Hop Festival 2020

Our popular FREE annual festival returned for a 5th year, celebrating all things Hip-Hop!

Jingle Bell Jam Christmas Disco

We teamed up with Bullring & Grand Central for a weekend of FREE festive fun in and around a glitter-filled disco dome outside St Martin’s Church.

Circus 120 - Birthday Open Day

Celebrating our circus origins, we held a spectacular showcase to mark our 120th birthday!

Summer in Southside 2019

In 2019, our FREE family festival went intergalactic and explored the spectacle and wonders of outer space.

B-SIDE Hip-Hop Festival 2019

Our popular FREE annual festival returned for a fourth year, celebrating all things Hip-Hop!

Lok Virsa Festival

Sonia Sabri Company presented Lok Virsa, a one-day ‘mela’ of free arts activities and pop-up performances for all the family.

International Women's Day

We hosted a whole day of events to mark International Women’s Day in March.

Chinese New Year 2019

We welcomed in the Year of the Pig at Birmingham’s Chinese New Year celebrations.

Homecomings

A large-scale performance project in New Street Station to commemorate the end of the First World War.

Summer in Southside 2018

In 2018, we headed back to childhood on the streets around the theatre.

B-SIDE Hip-Hop Festival 2018

Our popular annual FREE festival returned for its third year, celebrating all things Hip-Hop..

Chinese New Year 2018

Birmingham Hippodrome co-produced celebrations to welcome in the Year of the Dog.

Clash of Drums

As part of Birmingham Weekender, Birmingham Hippodrome presented Les Commandos Percu (France) and Deabru Beltzak (Spain) in Clash of Drums.

Peregrinus

A wandering theatre show inspired by TS Eliot’s The Hollow Men - part of Birmingham Weekender.

U.Dance 2017

U.Dance 2017 took place at Birmingham Hippodrome from 14-16 July.

Summer in Southside 2017

We escaped to the Countryside, on the streets of Southside in Summer 2017! Our annual festival celebrated the great outdoors where wildlife roamed, folk danced and live music filled the air.

B-SIDE Hip-Hop Festival 2017

Our annual FREE festival returned in May for its second year, celebrating all things Hip-Hop.

Chinese New Year 2017

Southside once again played host to the city’s Chinese New Year celebrations as thousands of festival-goers descended on the area and welcomed in the Year of the Rooster!

B-SIDE Hip-Hop Festival

An annual festival celebrating all things Hip-Hop.

Summer in Southside

Southside met Seaside in our annual Summer festival. The streets around the theatre were filled with a vibrant carnival atmosphere, nautical encounters, street acrobatics a marching band and much more!

Furious Folly

Furious Folly took place in Sutton Park, where the audience were immersed in the middle of sound, light, pyrotechnics and a powerful performance on the futility of war.

Midlight

Birmingham Hippodrome Creative and renowned British-Chinese artist Aowen Jin presented a unique interactive light installation in December 2015.

Birmingham Blitz Project

In November 2015, together with award winning arts organisation Metro-Boulot-Dodo, we presented an evocative and emotive illumination commemorating the Birmingham Blitz.

Birmingham Weekender

Birmingham’s largest arts festival, Birmingham Weekender 2015 featured an awe-inspiring programme of events from hundreds of world-class West Midlands and international artists and companies.

Summer in Southside

On bank holiday weekend in August 2015, Hippodrome Square and the Arcadian were filled with an entertaining jamboree of spectacular street performance.

The Frozen Scream

From 7 – 17 Jan 2015 Birmingham Hippodrome, Wales Millennium Centre and Christopher Green presented The Frozen Scream in our Patrick Centre studio starring Rula Lenska.

Minimum Monument

Minimum Monument was part of the City’s celebrations commemorating the centenary of World War One. Brazilian artist Néle Azevedo created a breath-taking display of over 5,000 figures made out of ice.

4 Squares Weekender

4 Squares Weekender was a major outdoor celebration on 6 – 8 Sep 2013 for the opening of the Library of Birmingham, presented by Birmingham Arts Partnership (BAP), the consortium of leading arts organisations and venues in the city.

The Voyage

In June 2012, an enormous ship sailed into the centre of Victoria Square docking itself beside the city’s Town Hall. High above the people who gathered to look at this marvel, dancers and aerialists appeared in the ship’s rigging... The Voyage had begun.