A V Festival

General information

AV Festival is a leading international Festival of contemporary art, film and music, based in North East England. A biennial event, the Festival is thematically curated to engage audiences with current ideas across contemporary artistic practice and wider society.

The Festival commissions new work, and curates thematic strands of internationally significant existing work, presented in an imaginative new context. Our commissions provide the opportunity for artists to make ambitious and risk-taking new work, in a variety of site-specific locations and venues.

We work with established and emerging artists, who relate to each Festival theme in an engaging and critical way. We are committed to working with artists who are innovative and experimental in their approach to contemporary visual art, film, moving image, media art, music and sound.

AV Festival takes place simultaneously across the region in around 30 venues and public sites, primarily in Newcastle, Gateshead, Sunderland and Middlesbrough. Since 2012 the Festival has been a month-long in duration, previously it was a ten-day event. Each Festival consists of around 15 new commissions, 50 film screenings, 20 exhibitions, 15 concerts plus seminars, talks and workshops; presenting the work of approx.140 artists.

Past editions of the Festival have taken place biennially since 2006, with a pilot edition in 2003.