More than 2,000 schoolchildren took to the stage at Bradford Live for the culmination of a huge Bradford 2025 cultural project, led by the Royal Ballet & Opera, Opera North and Northern Ballet. Sing, Dance, Leap saw thousands of Bradford learners perform with musicians, singers and dancers from the three organisations – and was just one part of a four-year community partnership between the Royal Ballet & Opera and Bradford that launched in 2023.

The New Music Biennial premieres a wealth of new music by some of the most exciting composers working today – and this year, it paid its first ever visit to Bradford. Across three days and nights, we heard 20 world premieres: small and large, quiet and deafening, weird and wonderful. Many of the works were later broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

No food is more central to UK culture than the humble biscuit, so we cooked up our very own selection just for you. Created by Bradford-based food artists Edible Archives, The Bradford Selection contained five varieties of biscuit inspired by Bradford communities and cultures, plus a selection of artworks and inserts. The biccies sold out in days – but you can still buy the collectible tin with a full set of recipes. Yumalicious!

Two special events offered very different perspectives on Bradford’s cultural heritage.

• First, we teamed up with Capsule’s Home of Metal for Everything for Everyone!, an all-day celebration of resistance and cooperation in honour of the city’s 1 in 12 Club.
• And then two weeks later, we joined Castles in the Sky Projects in Peel Park to present Pink in the Park, a day-long picnic and party celebrating the history of LGBTQ+ life in Bradford.

We joined up with the British Museum in June for a major exhibition at Cliffe Castle. Ice Age Art Now showed how artistic creativity has been an essential part of human life for millennia – and presented works dating back 24,000 years. Supplemented with a programme of talks, family activities and special events, the exhibition drew crowds to Cliffe Castle throughout the summer.

Bradford: A City of Film is our year-round celebration of cinema in Bradford – which, let’s not forget, was the world’s first UNESCO City of Film. June’s offerings included The Incredible Moving Cinema, a silver-screen-on-wheels that took a programme of recent hits and movie classics everywhere from Odsal Stadium to Woodbank Garden Centre.

Bradford Digital Creatives invited and supported pupils aged 13–14 in six Bradford schools to create new digital art inspired by their lives and experience – and in June, we got to see their work for ourselves. ReelBFD: Digital Arts, Bradford Stories, a free exhibition of their creations, went on display at the National Science & Media Museum, and remained open until September.

In June, the BD:Walls team launched an eye-catching pair of murals, City of Dreams and Harvest of Harmony, to welcome visitors to Darley Street Market ahead of its July opening. Both pieces have revitalised the space, celebrating Bradford’s diversity, and fostered pride in the city.

The Beacon, our very own touring venue, continued its month-long run in Bowling Park with a jam-packed programme of performances, activities and special events. Stand & Be Counted Theatre built The Big Blue Bradford House for Refugee Week, the Peace Museum hosted a special Peace Picnic, and Boogaloo Stu brought Big Quiffy Bingo to Bowling for one night only.

In collaboration with the National Literacy Trust, Share Your Story invited children aged 5–11 to hop aboard the Bradford Stories Bus in Bowling for a full day of story workshops and activities, and we welcomed 355 learners from three schools to a special event with author Humza Arshad.

The finale of the Bradford 2025 Poetry Slam brought some of Bradford’s young poets together for two nights of spoken word magic at The Beacon, with 1,816 learners taking part in workshops from November 2024, and 62 talented performers taking to the stage for the finale.

Our Patch, our year-long community creativity programme, brought even more free creative opportunities to residents right across the district:

• The ongoing DRAW! Tour presented free artist-led drawing sessions in Bowling, Keighley, Wilsden and Wyke, at Bradford Industrial Museum and at The Beacon on Bowling Park – including a special session for the under-5s.
• The Our Patch team were on hand to present creative activities at a number of community get-togethers, including The Big Lunch in Eccleshill Park, the East Riddlesden Gala, Burley Arts Festival and Belle Vue Girls’ Academy’s Family Day, both featured creative activities from the Our Patch team.
• In Holmewood, The Travelling Spoon had its final sessions as The Blank Page Club kicked off four weeks of storytelling workshops.
• And last but not least, Keighley Chorus were back around the piano at the Airedale Shopping Centre for another community sing-song.

• The BBC brought a pair Sunday TV staples to Bradford – Countryfile met Steve Messam, one of the artists featured in Wild Uplands, while Aled Jones hosted Songs of Praise from Bradford Cathedral. Watch them both on BBC iPlayer.
• Two more Bradford 2025 Artist-Led Project Awards came to fruition: Statuesque, a walkabout performance created by artists Naomi Parker and Rachel Hyde (Chicks on Sticks); and Nabeela Ahmed’s Pahari-Pothwari Literature Project, which saw the creation and performance of new writings created in the rarely-seen Pahari-Pothwari language and in English.
• Stories from Valley Parade celebrated a remarkable season for Bradford City AFC – and the power of football to bring us all together.
• The Big Thing welcomed dozens of artists, producers, technologists, researchers and more to Bradford for a three-day conference on immersive art.
• Wet Mess brought TESTO, their wildly subversive cabaret show, to Loading Bay for an unforgettable two-night run.
• Language: no broblem saw artist and performer Marah Haj Hussein explore language, multilingualism and borders in a thought-provoking show.
• Our Beyond The Spectrum creative writing project kicked off in partnership with Writing East Midlands. Open to Autistic adults and young people, the programme included in-person and online creative writing groups, where participants wrote together, learned and supported each other.
• Our Bradford on Foot cultural learning programme helped our Early Years up to Key Stage 2 children explore their natural and built heritage in their local area, supported by Get Out More and Historic England.