MAYFEST

Bristol’s international festival of contemporary theatre and live performance.

Arch by Kaleider, Mayfest 2024. Photo by Paul Blakemore

About Mayfest

Mayfest is Bristol’s biennial international festival of contemporary theatre and live performance; a vibrant context for unusual, playful, and ambitious live performance from artists all over the world.

Led by MAYK’s Co-Directors Kate Yedigaroff and Matthew Austin, Mayfest is a cross-city celebration of the creative vitality of Bristol and explores the parameters of the city as a creative playground.

Cultivating connections between artists, audiences, participants, and venues, Mayfest champions the voices and experiences of a diverse international community of artists who ask brave questions about how we live in a modern world.

“A mix of work so tasty it makes you want to up sticks and move to Bristol permanently” The Guardian

A photograph of Brook Tate and his band in front of a glitter curtain on stage at Bristol Old Vic. The stage is lit with blue lighting and Brook is wearing a zebra-print catsuit and has his arms outstretched

Birthmarked by Brook Tate, Mayfest 2022. Photo by Paul Blakemore

Latest News

Featured
A Look Back at Mayfest 2024
A Look Back at Mayfest 2024

In this blog post, we’re sharing team highlights, the Mayfest 2024 film, shot by Dan Canham and some photos from Paul Blakemore that were taken during the festival.

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Help shape the future of Mayfest – fill in our audience survey
Help shape the future of Mayfest – fill in our audience survey

Fill in our audience survey and get an exclusive discount at Good Chemistry’s online shop.

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This weekend’s Mayfest treats
This weekend’s Mayfest treats

Can you believe we’re more than half way through our programme already? It’s been an epic week here at MAYK HQ and we’re gearing up for what’s set to be a mega last few days of Mayfest.

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It doesn’t have to last forever – public art in a changing city
It doesn’t have to last forever – public art in a changing city

As Bristol enters a period of significant regeneration, how can we collectively reimagine what the provision of public art looks like in the future? How can artists playfully disrupt and create thrilling new place-based work that is non-permanent and has deeper, more rich community engagement.

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Watch the Mayfest 2024 film by Dan Canham and follow the Mayfest Instagram page for a peak into our most recent iteration.

During this year’s Mayfest, we collaborated with @puddingevents for the second time as part of the Emergent Value research project led by Dr @astridsews at @bathspauni. On three occasions throughout the festival, a number of you gathered with t
A Look Back at Mayfest 2024 has just gone up on @maykithappen's blog.🎉 Deep satisfaction with a twinge of melancholy tends to follow when events you’ve poured your soul into are over. This year’s Mayfest was a union of galvanizing emotio
Some more gorgeous pictures of Mayfest from @blikmo. 😍 We've said it before, but it must be said again; thank you so much to everyone that attended Mayfest shows and talks, to the volunteers and venues that made things possible and of course to th
Black and white photo of a young girl. The image hangs from a string in the forest.
A woman bent down as she builds an arch structure with ice blocks.
A boy looking at a cinema screen, holding a game controller and smiling. A crowd sits in the cinema seats around him.
A woman sat amongst a field of yellow flowers. She has headphones on.
Two performers dancing on stage, one behind the other. The one behind holds a green beer bottle.
A crowd looks at a performer's shadow being cast behind a large film of plastic.
Two men on stage, one plays a guitar sat down, one plays a keyboard and synth.
A yellow wooden hammock suspended on a tree. A person lays in it.
Artists Tom Marshman and Caroline Mary Williams smiling at the camera outside Bristol Old Vic.
Sound artist EJ:AKIN performing with blue freehand drawing projected on a screen behind them.
Two sets of hands poking out from behind two sets of curtains. The curtains are pink velvet, with microphones facing the hands as if they'll speak.
A group of 4 producers at Bristol Old Vic smiling and laughing together.
Artists Jo Bannon and Holly Thomas sat down at Pervasive Media Studio. Holly is talking and holding a cup. Jo Bannon looks at her.
Dan Daw on stage wearing inflatable dragon appendages.
THE END_MAYFEST 2024-8.JPG
Tim Crouch stood on a dark stage, wearing a VR headset. He looks toward the crowd and points one hand.
Audience members at Zvisdal looking at the small model house and garden made by the artist. They sit in a large, plastic dish for viewing.

Images by Paul Blakemore from Mayfest 2024.