AND Festival returns for 2026

AND Festival, the UK’s only nomadic festival of art, technology and digital culture, returns for its landmark 10th edition in Barnsley on Fri 25 – Sun 27 September 2026.

Over one transformative weekend, AND will deliver extraordinary art and site-responsive installations, collaborating with visionary artists and creative technologists that push the boundaries of immersive experiences.

Activating in South Yorkshire for the first time, the festival ignites Barnsley into a temporary site to test ambitious new ideas and platform radical international and local artists. From innovative XR (Extended Reality) installations, performances and screenings, to stimulating talks from leading experts, the festival meets Barnsley’s ambitions to be the UK’s leading digital town, and to the North’s identity as a place of creativity, innovation and cultural exchange where new ideas are tested and futures are imagined.

Building on a legacy of adventurous and experimental programmes, AND Festival will create a vibrant site of discovery for audiences to experience Barnsley in new and transformative ways. The programme playfully interrogates the hidden infrastructures that shape how we live and connect, from distribution hubs, subterranean trails and tunnels, to the digital, cultural and industrial networks embedded in the landscape.

Whether you’re an urban explorer, a culture lover, or just inspired by how art can reshape the way we see the world, AND Festival invites you to be boldly curious and join us for our next adventure in Barnsley.

Tadeo Lopez-Sendon, Chief Executive for Abandon Normal Devices says: “Since 2009, AND has transformed landscapes across the North into living laboratories for artistic and creative experimentation. AND Festival 2021 took us on a journey responding to the Manchester Ship Canal and River Mersey, on docklands and on the water, featuring augmented reality seascapes, immersive voyages and floating bio-art labs, and expanded through an online programme of radical conversations. In 2017, the festival reimagined the caves and valleys of the Peak District through sound, performance and ethereal visual landscapes, creating unique encounters that could only exist in those settings. AND Festival 2026 extends this legacy into Barnsley, uncover the region’s hidden infrastructures and transforming them into shared spaces of imagination and encounters, tracing the arc from local stories and collective memory to future innovation.”

Cllr Robin Franklin, Barnsley Council’s cabinet spokesperson for Regeneration and Culture, said: “We are so excited to partner with AND and bring this innovative, world-leading digital arts festival to Barnsley. We want to give our residents and visitors, and particularly our young people, amazing experiences that spark curiosity, learning and ambition. This festival will do exactly that, and shows our commitment to exploring all that digital technologies can bring to our borough. I’d encourage everyone to put the dates in your diary, and get involved!”

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AND Festival 2026 is hosted by Barnsley Museums and Barnsley Civic, developed in partnership with Barnsley Council, and part of a wider touring programme with partners Full of Noises, Mediale, Right Up Our Street, and Wigan Council. Supported using public funding through the National Lottery by Arts Council England.

Image credit: Magna Park, Milton Keynes a2n.co.uk; Tunnel Gricer on 28dayslater.co.uk