Stroll up, stroll up, there’s a zany family fun festival coming to town. Belfast’s Festival of Fools is set to bring amazing feats to the City streets over 6 days from 3 - 8 May with over 50 shows planned for the festival.
Combining local Belfast acts alongside performers and artists from as far away as New Zealand to the Netherlands, Spain to Finland and Belgium to London, this year the festival's organisers have scoured all corners of the globe to ensure the streets of Belfast, and everyone on them, will be bursting their sides with laughter as they witness comedy alongside fabulous circus feats and high energy acts.
Fifteen acts will fill the streets over the May Bank Holiday weekend with free performances across the city daily from Saturday 3 to Monday 5 May. Acts will perform across a number of city centre sites and venues including 2 Royal Avenue, Cornmarket, St Anne’s Square, Writers’ Square, The MAC, Circusful and Ulster University. In addition, the Festival will appear this year for the first time at a brand-new location, the historical Riddel’s Warehouse during the weekend. Acts include the hilarious Fraser Hooper, who is set to guarantee giggles galore with his award winning funnyman show, and Circus Simon who will bring his juggling, football and inspiring circus feats to the city all the way from Finland. From Catalonia, silent clown maestro Cia Pau Palaus will be inviting the public to play, whilst sword climbing and chaos will be in the mix from local act Logy on Fire, so things might get a little hot, and dangerous! Not to be left behind, acrobatic quartet Cikada Circus, will literally stand on each other's shoulders to ensure you have the best view point to watch their act. It's going to be a tall order for sure, and a mix of old and new talent will perform alongside some seasoned classics.
In addition to the May Bank Holiday weekend of events, this year by popular demand the Festival will host two events on 7 and 8 May at its Circusful venue and the MAC. A limited number of tickets will be made available to join the fabulous Chop by Lords of Strut who will take his mayhem, madness and a lot of chopped wood to the MAC. Alongside, the amazing Emmen Jude Donnelly, will combine physical performance with immersive installation, with VARC, Visual Audio Radical Circus. This new co-commission with Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival will transform Circusful’s warehouse on Gordon Street into a stage for bodies exploring the possibilities of physical space, giving permission for provocative play on the ground and in the air.
Welcoming this year’s festival of fun and silliness, Flora Herberich, Creative Director, with Festival of Fools, said, “Over 8 days Belfast is going to be filled to the brim with mayhem, laughter, circus performances and a lot of clowning around as we bring the best of outdoor performance to the streets of the City over the first bank holiday weekend in May. We are thrilled to have some of the best circus performers and acts from near and far bringing their feats of fun, frolics and mayhem to the streets with over 50 performances planned over the weekend, all of which are absolutely free, so there is literally zero, nada, nil reason to miss them!
As with last year, back by popular demand, we have also created 2 fabulous additional performances with Chop and VARC featuring in the MAC and Circusful Studio on 7 and 8 May too. Tickets for these two special events are available online, costing £7.50 upwards, and will be sure to sell out fast.
In addition to the amazing selection of performers, we are thrilled to have brilliant support and partnerships in place, without them we simply could not bring such a fantastic feat of fun to the streets of Belfast. Thanks to ISACS and Creative Ireland we will be joined by a number of industry representatives from Ireland and abroad at this year's festival, providing an important opportunity to see and share excellence. We are thrilled to have Institut Ramon Llull from Barcelona support us too, underpinning the important links we are making with Catalan companies, with plans to bring some artists to next year's festival already underway. Locally, we have partnered with Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival to deliver a bursary scheme for this year's festival, which has given viable support to VARC and with Ulster Presents who co-produced A Stroll on our Shoulders.
Alongside the partnerships, we are really excited to be working with so many local venues, including the MAC and 2 Royal Avenue who have literally bent over backwards, circus style, to work with us and accommodate this year's Festival. These partnerships mean we can ensure an excellent quality festival experience for everyone who comes along. We are thrilled to be bringing new locations to the 2025 Festival too and are super excited to be using Riddel’s Warehous for the first time for a number of festival performances. The majority of performances will be staged outdoors with a small number being held in local venues,”Flora concluded.
Festival of Fools is the largest festival of free-to-access circus and outdoor performance in Northern Ireland. Artists from around the world feature alongside the best of locally based talent. All daytime shows are free to attend. Evening show tickets can be booked online.
Details of all shows which will begin from 12 noon daily on Saturday 3rd, Sunday 4th and Monday 5th May, and run through to the evening with ‘Big Finish Shows’ are available online at www.foolsfestival.com
