Preview: NOVUM Festival

Newcastle city centre transforms into a playground of performance, installation and creative exploration from Friday 7th–Sunday 9th August as NOVUM Festival returns with a action-packed programme of free outdoor fun, family‑friendly activity, exhibitions, workshops and ticketed events spread across the city. The festival’s scale is massive and is spread across three days, streets, squares, galleries, libraries and civic spaces showcasing an ambitious mix of North East talent and visiting companies, with drop‑ins, walkabouts, timed performances and immersive experiences running from morning until evening.

Friday opens with Gan Canny, a free exhibition at The Arches, and Reshaping the Toon, an installation at Newcastle City Library. Music fans can catch singer-songwriter Melanie Baker live at Newcastle Contemporary Art Gallery in one of the festival’s ticketed evening shows. Across the weekend, hands‑on creativity is everywhere with Wheelie Proud Flag Making, The Lit & Phil Invention Challenge, Gigantic Bubble Fun, Vinyl 4 Teenz and a host of craft‑based drop‑ins invite families and young people to get stuck in.

Outdoor performance is NOVUM’s bread ‘n’ butter. Walkabout theatre appears throughout the city centre with Blockbuster Factory (playful DIY film antics), Kamchàtka (engaging and interactive street theatre), The Turkey & The Caterpillar (whimsical walkabout storytelling), Wheelie Proud (colourful rolling celebration), and Mr Wilson’s Second Liners (upbeat roaming brass band), whose roaming brass‑party energy is set to be a crowd magnet. Dance and movement feature heavily too, including Bird Rave (high‑energy, avian‑inspired dance party), Fabric of Us (collaborative movement performance), Beats, Cycles & Song (music‑and‑cycling procession), and The Swings (aerial swing choreography), offering everything from aerial work to playful choreography. Large‑scale pieces such as BLOCK (dynamic acrobatic tower‑building) on Grey Street bring acrobatics and physical theatre into the orbit of the general shopping public.

If it’s raining or too sunny then you can head indoors for some immersive installations such as Submergence and A Room in Bloom, which provide sensory, light‑based environments, while the NOVUM Nook offers a quiet space for anyone needing a breather. Silent discos appear in two flavours — the family‑friendly Glow Silent Disco and the adults‑only Afterglow Silent Disco — both ticketed highlights at Newcastle Civic Centre. Film lovers can head to Tyneside Cinema for a screening of The Brutalist.

Sunday brings one of NOVUM’s signature events: Dominoes Newcastle, a vast chain‑reaction artwork sending thousands of breeze blocks through the city in a sculptural cascade, providing a major finale and one of its most visually striking commissions. Elsewhere, music continues with Sticky Lips Live, and young performers take centre stage in Triple Threat X NOVUM: NOVUM BATTLE.

Across its three days, NOVUM offers a city‑wide celebration of creativity for all tastes and budgets, rooted in accessibility, play and public space. Whether you’re after hands‑on workshops, bold outdoor performance, family activity or late‑night immersive experiences, the festival’s 2026 edition has something for you. Don’t believe me, then visit their website to find out more.

Dominoes at Station House Opera, Melbourne 2016.-Photo by-Kieran Stewart