Brighton Festival 2025 is an exciting event that will feature music, theatre, dance, circus and talks from May 3 to May 26. The festival will be curated by Grammy-nominated sitarist Anoushka Shankar.
This year’s festival has the theme New Dawn and a whole host of events to look forward to. If you’re looking to attend but don’t want to break the bank, there are numerous free activities that you can enjoy. You can celebrate the art, culture, and inclusivity of the Brighton Festival regardless of your budget.
Children’s Parade
Kicking off the festival on Saturday, May 3, at 10:30 am, is the much-anticipated Children’s Parade. Organised by Same Sky, thousands of children from over 60 local schools put on imaginative costumes and parade through the city streets. The parade embodies the festival’s spirit of community and creativity.
The Children’s Parade is described as a fiesta of colour, with bright costumes and live music prepping you for the weeks of celebration to come. Schools across the city come together to think about the future. What do we want to change, what do we want to cherish, and what do we want to chuck. It is a parade of ideas for a better day.
Address: Start: Jubilee Steet Parade End: Madeira Drive
Website: The Children’s Parade / Brighton Festival 2025 | Brighton Festival
how dark it is before dawn
Enjoy a free visual art exhibition by Doyel Joshi and Neil Ghose Balser of Howareyoufeeling.studio. Take a seat and watch the horizon from one of their 108 Red Chairs popping up around Brighton and Hove.
You can also attend their free workshop and draw your own New Dawn, engaging in an immersive, participatory art installation at the end of Brighton Festival. Workshops will take place on Saturday, May 10, from 2.30pm to 4.30pm, at the Jubilee Library; Sunday, May 11, from 10am to 11am, 12pm to 1pm and 3pm to 4pm at Brighton Dome Founders Room; Saturday, May 17, from 10am to 11am, 12pm to 1pm and 3pm to 4pm at Brighton Dome Founders Room. Please note that there are limited places so it is first come first served.
Drawings will be showcased as part of a final installation at The Old Courtroom, from Friday, May 23 to Monday, May 26.
Address: Brighton Dome, Church Street, Brighton BN1 1UE ; The Jubilee Library, Jubilee Street The Lanes, West Blatchington BN1 1GE
Website: How dark it is before dawn | Brighton Festival
Beside the Sea
Beside the sea is a collaborative exhibition by photographers JJ Waller and Martin Parr, capturing the essence of seaside life. Taking place on Saturday, May 3 to Monday, May 26, it is an exciting exhibition that can only be seen from the top deck of a bus.
Photographers Waller and Parr present a groundbreaking exhibition of supersized photographs fixed flat to the roofs of many of the city’s bus shelters. Beside the Seaside presents photographs in a format that is a world first. This exhibition is free to discover with your bus ticket or pass.
Website: Beside the Sea / Brighton Festival 2025 | Brighton Festival
in the eye of a dream
Explore Kinnari Saraiya’s work at Phoenix Art Space, delving into dreamscapes and subconscious narratives. The exhibition will take place on Saturday, May 3 to Sunday, May 29. In the eye of a dream is a multimedia exhibition by Kinnari Saraiya exploring how colonial powers used anthropology to study and control native populations by analysing their dreams for signs of rebellion.
Saraiya’s work reimagines these by drawing on indigenous perspectives that view dreams as gateways to alternate realities and transformative experiences. In the Eye of a Dream weaves together textiles, interactive installations, and a traveling cinema to blend historical archives with imaginative fiction.
Saraiya transforms discarded Jacquard loom punch cards, historically used for programmable weaving, into touch interactive hand-embroidered controllers, which animate virtual characters. The stories of these characters unfold through dance, choreographed in collaboration with Indian classical performers.
The event is suitable for all ages and taking place at Phoenix Art Space.
Address: 10-14 Waterloo Place, Brighton BN2 9NB
Website: In the Eye of a Dream / Brighton Festival 2025 | Brighton Festival
walk to the bottom of the sea
On Saturday, May 10, artist Emma Critchley leads “Walk to the Bottom of the Sea,” a unique 7-mile coastal walk from Hove to Saltdean. This event simulates a descent to the ocean’s depths, with guest speakers discussing marine conservation and the implications of deep-sea mining. While the event is free, it has limited availability and is recommended for participants aged 16 and above.
The walk intends to create a space for discussion about the way in which we think about and might care for the deep; it responds to the current issue of deep-sea mining and the impact mining the seabed would have on the delicate ecosystem of the ocean. Guest speakers will be announced on the Brighton Festival website closer to the event.
This event accompanies Emma Critchley’s Soundings, a three-screen film and sound installation with live performance which explores the ways that we might imagine, portray and talk about the deep ocean, and how this becomes fundamental to how we govern it. It is a 7 mile walk with stops along the way and will last 5.5 hours approximately.
The walk will take place at 9:30 am and the meeting point is at Seafront, Hove. The walk will end at Saltdean. Please note that the event will not take place in heavy rain or high winds.
Website: Walk to the Bottom of the Sea / Brighton Festival 2025 | Brighton Festival
These free events at the Brighton Festival will not disappoint. Many are family-friendly so grab the kids and head on down to one of the many art exhibitions available. Why not take some photos next to some of the creative art pieces on display.
Read more: Brighton Festival 2025 Classical Music Highlights
Brighton Festival 2025: Dance And Circus Highlights
Brighton Festival 2025: Contemporary Music Highlights
