ANNOUNCING OUTER WAVES 2026
Outer Waves 2026: Liverpool’s Experimental Arts Festival Returns — May 23–24, 2026
After its acclaimed 2025 debut, Outer Waves Festival returns to Liverpool on May 23–24, 2026, taking over the Invisible Wind Factory and Make North Docks.
The festival is a weekend of boundary-pushing sound, performance, and art, bringing together an international lineup exploring ritual, rhythm, and radical expression. This year’s artists include OXN (with Radie Peat of Lankum), fusing Irish folk mysticism with droning electronics; Catalan industrial minimalists Dame Area; Jarboe & Thor Harris (Swans); Japan’s psychedelic tribal-bass duo Waq Waq Kingdom; Syrian Dabke innovator Mohammad Syfkhan; Liverpool’s genre-defying a.P.A.t.T.; the anarchic Unstoppable Sweeties Show; and surreal queer-pop outfit Domestic Partners.
Outer Waves 2026 also features workshops, panels, commissions, and installations, with more details to come. After-parties at Quarry will extend the festivities with guest DJs, collaborations, and immersive late-night experiences.
The organisers note:
“Outer Waves celebrates the wild, the wonderful, and the weird — a space where sound and performance collide.”
