Compass Festival 2026

With live art installations and performance, Compass Festival will animate Leeds once again throughout November. Every two years, the festival pops up in public spaces across the city, bringing experimental art out of traditional venues and into everyday places. This year, eight projects will unfold across Leeds, from large-scale installations and one-to-one performance encounters to playful works in markets, galleries and museums. Many events are free to attend, with some ticketed performances across the programme.

Since 2011, Compass has built a reputation for creating brilliant interactive live art projects that invite audiences to connect, take part and experience the city differently. Now celebrating 15 years, the festival continues to champion work that feels rooted in the people, places and stories of Leeds.

One of this year’s major commissions is Moi Tran’s The Text is Restless (6-15 November), a large-scale text sculpture taking over the Central Court at Leeds Art Gallery. Over nine days, visitors will be invited to move, shift and reassemble the work, gradually uncovering new meanings and creating a constantly changing piece shaped by the people who encounter it.

Elsewhere, Ema Boswood’s You Don’t Have to Cover Your Eyes (7 & 8 and 14 & 15 November) offers something more intimate. Taking place at Meanwood Valley Urban Farm, this one-to-one performance unfolds over cake and coffee as Boswood recounts the plot of a horror film she has never actually watched, only read about online. Designed for people who love horror but would rather avoid the actual scares. Funny, strange and very Compass.

At Kirkgate Market, Small Acts’ Faceback (19 – 21 November) turns social networking into something brilliantly analogue. Visitors have their face turned into a badge, then wear somebody else’s and set off through the market to find the person it belongs to. The result is a playful invitation to talk to strangers and make connections face-to-face.

Later in the month, Action Hero’s From Ashes (28 & 29 November) brings a paper model of Leeds to Leeds City Museum. Built with the help of hundreds of local people and covered in ash, the miniature city is gradually excavated by audiences in a participatory work exploring fragility, repair and how we imagine the future of the places we call home.

Compass Festival has become a much-loved part of Leeds’ cultural calendar. Fifteen years on, it continues to offer unexpected ways to meet, think and experience the city differently.

Check out the full festival programme.