LIVERPOOL GEARING UP FOR A BLOCKBUSTER SEASON OF SOUND
Liverpool’s famous music scene will be celebrated this May as a new initiative, Liverpool Music Month, is launched.
Delivered by Culture Liverpool and Sound City, the programme will run from Friday 1 to Sunday 31 May 2026 and will see live performances, cultural events, and community activity take place throughout the city region.
Liverpool Music Month’s May-long celebration of live music spotlights the artists, venues and communities that have made Liverpool a UNESCO City of Music, and the programme is twinned with New York Music Month, an established fixture in New York City’s cultural calendar since 2017.
Creating a transatlantic partnership between two of the world’s great music cities, Liverpool Music Month celebrates both cities’ standing as historic centres of trade, their musical legacies and the new generations of artists shaping their futures, strengthening international cultural ties through a shared celebration of music.
Kicking off Liverpool Music Month is Sound City Festival, which brings both homegrown and international talent to wider prominence over the weekend of Saturday 2 to Sunday 3 May 2026.
The Dark Reign Metal Fest also takes place at Birkenhead’s Future Yard on Saturday 2 May, and performances by Emmy Lou Harris, The Longest Johns, Kingfishr, Biird, Sunny Afternoon, James Morrison, and Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox are among those being spotlighted during the four-week-long celebration.
At the Liverpool Philharmonic there are gigs across all genres on most days including the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra’s Celebration of the Beach Boys, Roland Gift Presents Fine Young Cannibals, Max Cooper, and US acts Hannah Wicklund and Ondara.
Wrapping up the month, Baltic Weekender is set to take over multiple venues across Saturday 30 and Sunday 31 May, including Camp and Furnace and Brick Street, with a line-up of up-to-date house music, disco, techno, bass, and grime sets.
With many events still to be confirmed, the month will also feature new commissions, pop-up performances, and community-led events, celebrating the full spectrum of Liverpool’s music scene from grassroots to global.
In the coming weeks, Liverpool Music Month will also launch an open commissioning fund inviting venues, promoters, artists and music organisations to apply for support to deliver their own events, performances, training opportunities, and creative activations as part of the programme. The fund will help ensure that Liverpool Music Month reflects the creativity and diversity of the city region’s music scene, supporting grassroots activity and enabling new ideas and collaborations to take place across the region.
Liverpool Music Month will be followed by Liverpool Summer of Music, a city-region-wide celebration of live music and cultural events taking place from June through to August.
The programme will shine a spotlight on the full calendar of festivals, concerts, and events taking place across the Liverpool City Region, from the city centre to communities and neighbourhoods throughout the boroughs.
From the stage of The Cavern Club and global arena shows to the region’s legendary grassroots spaces, Liverpool has shaped the sound of modern music.
Liverpool Summer of Music’s events focus on influential independent venues – such as 24 Kitchen Street, The Jacaranda, and other cutting-edge indoor and outdoor spaces that continue to nurture new waves of artists – and major city events including Foo Fighters and My Chemical Romance’s huge Anfield Stadium shows, Lewis Capaldi taking over Sefton Park, and eternal festival headline favourites Nile Rodgers & Chic performing at Lock and Quay in Bootle.
Liverpool Music Month and Liverpool Summer of Music build on the global momentum created when the city hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in 2023, an event watched by 162 million people worldwide and which generated more than £54 million for the local economy. Liverpool Music Month will be the first event to capture that same energy, once again putting music at the heart of the city’s cultural life and international reputation.
Underlining its continued importance as a centre of musical talent and export, analysis by the BPI shows that, outside London, Liverpool produces more chart-topping albums than any other UK city.
Together, Liverpool Music Month and Liverpool Summer of Music will invite music lovers from across the UK and beyond to experience the best live music the region has to offer, reinforcing Liverpool’s reputation as one of the world’s great music cities while ensuring the benefits of music tourism are felt across the entire city region.
Further programme details will be announced in the coming months. In the meantime you can join the mailing list here and find out what’s on here.
If you’re one of Liverpool’s brilliant bars, venues, restaurants, hotels, shops or hospitality providers, we’d love for you to show your support for Liverpool Music Month. Download and use our Partner Pack to help fly the flag!
