Thousands of people gathered in Shipley’s Market Square for two performances of a captivating new show inspired by the town and its people. Bloom was created for Bradford 2025 by contemporary circus pioneers Upswing, and starred dozens of Shipley residents – nearly 200 singers, who took part in the show’s mass choir, and 10 aerialists, who dangled high above the town at the climax of this beautiful show. The show also featured local individuals who had taken part in our aerial training engagement programme, developing their aerial and performance skills to perform in this major outdoor event.

Another first for Bradford 2025: exactly 130 years after it was founded by conductor Henry Wood, the BBC Proms came to Bradford for the first time. And what a Prom it was – African soul queen Angélique Kidjo was joined by the BBC Philharmonic and special guest Corinne Bailey Rae to raise the St George’s Hall roof with the UK premiere of Derrick Hodge’s African Symphony.

BBC Contains Strong Language,  the UK’s biggest poetry and performance festival for new writing, visited Bradford for the first time in September. Presented in partnership with Word Up North, the four-day wordy weekender featured dozens of events all over the city centre, including:

• Recordings and broadcasts of BBC Radio shows including The Verb, Loose Ends and Beyond Belief.
• A rare live show in Bradford from poet and musician Antony Szmierek.
• The launch of The Book of Bradford, a new anthology published by Comma Press and commissioned by Bradford 2025.
• A two-part Poetry Gala featuring the likes of Imtiaz Dharker, Andrew McMillan and Kirsty Taylor.

The Beacon, our treasured touring venue, pulled into Lister Park in Manningham for the final stop on its six-month tour of the district. Highlights included:

• Blankets & Wine Bradford (part of the British Council UK/Kenya Season 2025) brought a wealth of Kenyan artists together with Bradford-based African talent for a day-long festival.
• The Invite saw Mind the Gap, England’s premier learning disability performance and arts company, throw a surprise birthday party with music, movement… and cake.
• The Peace Museum hosted its final Peace Picnic of the summer.
• Ark Bradford brought together voices from across the district in Storm Gathering, a social engagement project sparking conversation about climate and community.
• The National Literary Trust’s Bradford Stories Bus hosted a day of free activities for children aged 5–11.
• And the curtain came down with The Beacon Big Feast, an outdoor community celebration that marked the end of The Beacon’s run at Bradford 2025.

In September, BD:Walls revealed a brand new mural on the side of The Broadway, taking from the district’s industrial heritage and its stunning natural setting – from the Mills to the Hills.

Back in 2024, Bradford 2025 teamed up with the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth and Pa Gya! A Literary Festival in Accra to invite four writers – Kristina Diprose and CM Govender from Bradford, Akorfa Dawson and Peggy Kere Osman from Ghana – to pen new short stories inspired by the imaginary worlds created by the Brontës as children.

Fast forward 12 months to September 2025, and Wandering Imaginations opened to the public with an exhibition and launch event at the museum. Can’t make it? Don’t worry: you can listen to all four stories on our website.

The wonderful Faiza Butt was our DRAW! artist for September, inspiring people across the nation to pick up a pen, a pencil or even a tablet and get drawing. Faiza’s theme was ‘drawn together’, which she launched with a beautiful new artwork created for Bradford 2025 called ‘Memento Mori’ – and you can see the responses to it in our online gallery.

We were delighted to take part in this year’s Heritage Open Days, England’s largest festival of history and culture.

Bradford events ranged from Its Wings Are Almost Free and Everything Is Connected, an exhibition in Thornton of art by women from the Methodist Modern Art Collection, to The Real McCoy, a travelling exhibition at City Hall showcasing the achievements throughout history of black inventors. All events were free.

It was a bumper month for the Bradford 2025 Artist-Led Project Awards , our programme that awarded grants of up to £15,000 to local artists and organisations for the creation of new work. No fewer than four supported projects came to fruition:

• Days After Harvest, an art installation from Double Pivot that celebrated the art of Bradford’s Mango Season;
• Otherhood, a new immersive theatre experience and soundscape from the city’s Old Bird Theatre; and
• Pins for Peace, which saw art instigators Mek Summat team up with the Peace Museum for a new large-scale exhibition in Saltaire.
• HONK!, a free weekend of music from Bradford’s beloved Peace Artistes;

Take a look back at HONK!

The start of the new academic year saw our teams return to Bradford schools for a host of educational programmes, including:

• ‘Drama adventures’ for under-11s, created by Alive & Kicking and presented in primary schools across the district.
• Full-day art workshops in secondary schools and further-education settings, led by a local textile artist and inspired by Ann Hamilton’s installation We Sill Sing.
• PLAY: Common Ground, which set out to make meaningful connections between learners in SEND settings and mainstream schools through creative expression.
• The Sound of Bradford, a series of music production workshops in eight secondary schools inspired by immersive sound walk Earth & Sky.

By September, Our Patch had built stronger relationships with more communities and found creativity everywhere they were:

• In Bradford South the Doorstep Davinci project took workshops into care homes.
• In Bradford West the team were developing a creative care package, with and for people accessing The Bridge Project.
• In Bradford East creative sessions for wellbeing were being offered to the patients and their families at the Marie Curie Hospice.
• The People’s Care Movement was developing ways to share their ideas for growing a community of care through conversation, creativity and cups of tea.
• The Baton of Hope suicide prevention campaign visited the Beacon at Lister Park and was serenaded by the Lower Grange community choi for their first ever public performance.

• Open Air Cinema continued with a sell-out immersive screening of Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, created with Wild Rumpus and presented at Thornton Viaduct.
• The BBC broadcast two episodes of Antiques Roadshow recorded at Lister Park and Cartwright Hall – watch the first here and the second here thanks to BBC iPlayer.
• The BBC’s Make a Difference Awards also came to town with a ceremony at Bradford Live.
• Bradford’s very own Displace Yourself Theatre premiered A World Without Death, a dynamic show that took place across the city over the course of a three-day weekend.
• The Turner Prize exhibition opened with a big neighbourhood launch party, welcoming the people of Manningham to this landmark exhibition.
• Big Deli and a cast of Bradford rappers starred in RIDE!, an electrifying new show created for Bradford 2025 with Gypsy and Traveller communities and the people of BD4.
• OUR TURN: Practice Bradford, an exhibition at Loading Bay, showcased work by four exciting emerging artists from Bradford: Joanna Byrne, Atiyya Mirza, Liv Preston and Saba Siddiqui.
• We celebrated 25 years of The Big Draw Festival, the world’s largest celebration of drawing, with Drawn Together, a free weekend-long creative extravaganza in Keighley.