Building on the success of Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture
Now that the dust has settled and we are well into 2026, we can look back at the extraordinary year of Bradford’s time in the spotlight as UK City of Culture 2025. And what a tremendous year it was – to describe it as a success is an understatement.
The city welcomed more than three million people to its events, with audiences coming from across the district, the UK and from around the world. It was an ambitious, brilliantly curated, diverse and exciting programme and it absolutely delivered on its promise to bring world-class cultural events to the city and its surroundings, to showcase homegrown talent and creatives as well as national and international artists and to offer a huge range of opportunities in terms of participation and engagement to people of all ages and backgrounds throughout the city and wider Bradford district.
Building on the momentum of last year and as part of its legacy, Bradford Culture Company, the independent charity set up to deliver Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture, is continuing as a smaller and more focussed operation and, in collaboration with local and national partners, will be creating more opportunities for local artists and arts organisations, reinstate its volunteering programme and further open up access to culture and creativity to residents.
“I am so proud of how the city embraced Bradford 2025 and really ran with it,” says Shanaz Gulzar, creative director of Bradford Culture Company, who along with her team delivered last year’s phenomenal cultural programme. “We knew we were trying to do something really ambitious and the kind of positive response we received, not just from local audiences but nationally and internationally, meant so much to us as a team. And the enthusiasm and energy from audiences did not let up throughout the whole year and that was really infectious, it fed into our own energy.”
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Looking to the future and building on that energy and enthusiasm is the next step. “I think Broadford 2025 has become a benchmark for Bradford,” says Gulzar.”And the next ten years is focussed on thinking about how the city and district wants its future to look like and what kind of investments it wants to make. I think last year has instilled a feeling of civic pride and community spirit.”
A key element of Bradford Culture Company’s programme going forward is the planned reopening in May of the specially commissioned pop-up venue the Loading Bay, created from a former warehouse, in Bradford city centre. One of the big successes of last year, the venue which has two performance areas and a gallery space hosted a wide range of events including theatre, exhibitions, dance, live music, cabarets and comedy nights and saw 40,000 people come through its doors. Also expected to return in the summer is The Beacon, a temporary, community-focussed venue, which travelled around the district popping up at various locations delivering cultural delights. The plan is for a programme of live music, poetry, dance, arts and crafts and family takeovers. “One of the reasons we set up the Beacon was because we were the first City of Culture with such a wide reach geographically, we had to find imaginative ways to get to all our communities in the Bradford district,” says Gulzar. “The Beacon was so embraced by all the different places it visited that it feels really important to continue that. There was some extraordinary work showcased in the Beacon and we are looking at how that’s going to be delivered this year.”
A fruitful partnership with the BBC was also established last year, with the corporation’s Contains Strong Language – the poetry and spoken word festival – taking place in Bradford in September as well as other significant events such as Extraordinary Portraits with Bill Bailey. That relationship will continue, with plans already in place including a major new writing programme led by BBC Writers alongside five local cultural organisations – Screen Yorkshire, New Writing North, Word Up North, Bradford Producing Hub and Bradford Arts Centre.
It will be interesting to see what happens next, but there is no doubt that the will is there – from the team behind Bradford 2025 – and from the people of Bradford to make the most of the opportunities that have already been offered and those that will be coming their way. “I feel a huge amount of pride about last year – it was such a privilege and honour to deliver it,” says Gulzar. “And now I’m excited to see how we can ensure that Bradford continues to be shaped by arts and culture.”
Further information and forthcoming activity will be announced in the coming weeks. Bradford2025.co.uk