Leeds Lowdown: What’s on in October 2026

Ready for a jam-packed October? It’s here. This month’s Lowdown features everything from the thought-provoking Leeds International Festival of Ideas to frightfully good Lates at the Thackray Museum of Medicine. From Louis Theroux to Leeds Scare Maze, you’ll have plenty to keep you busy through half-term, Halloween and everything in between. 

Festivals

Leeds International Festival of Ideas (LIFI) is back at Leeds Playhouse from Tuesday 6 to Saturday 10 October, and this year’s line-up is one of its strongest yet. Louis Theroux opens the festival with a fireside chat spanning four decades of broadcasting, Elizabeth Day brings her conversation on resilience and self-limiting beliefs to the Quarry, and the week closes with Tim Minchin talking creativity and chaos. 

In between, expect Chris Packham on the future of the planet, Dame Evelyn Glennie and Tasha Ghouri in conversation, and panel discussions covering everything from suicide and the legacy of the 90s to what belonging really means in modern Britain. Several sessions are already sold out, with others selling fast, so it’s worth booking sooner rather than later.

Light Night Leeds moves into October half term for the first time this year, taking place on 28 and 29 October under the theme A City Speaks, as part of the ongoing Leeds 400 celebrations. Expect more than 40 free light and projection installations across the city centre, exploring four centuries of Leeds through contemporary art, with the full programme announced at the end of September.

Elsewhere, Goth City Festival celebrates a milestone this year, returning for a special tenth anniversary edition running 12 to 17 October across five different venues. Wharf Chambers hosts the opening night with headliners Hurtsfall, with the week building to a weekend of live music at Boom Leeds. All proceeds go to Positive Action For Refugees and Asylum Seekers (PAFRAS), the festival’s chosen local cause since it started.

If you fancy something more nostalgic than nocturnal, The Emo Festival hits The Warehouse on 3 October, a tribute night with a live band and DJs that’s ideal for anyone who still knows every word to their teenage soundtrack – eyeliner optional but encouraged. The Big Indie Tribute Festival follows at the same venue on 24 October with a similar spirit aimed at the indie disco crowd. 

Beer lovers should head to Oktoberfest at TESTBED on 10 October for steins, pretzels and oompah in the newly refurbished event space. For something calmer, Authors at the Armouries bookends the month on 31 October with a day of talks and signings at the Royal Armouries, worth combining with a wander round the collections while you’re there.

Theatre

Opera North has a double bill running at Leeds Grand Theatre this month. Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin runs from 9 to 29 October, and Verdi’s Rigoletto opens on 18 October and continues to the 31st. Catch an aching story of unrequited love and social ambition in Tsarist Russia, and a much darker tale of a court jester’s revenge, all in the same week.

Over at Carriageworks Theatre, local company Patrick Productions brings a community staging of Made in Dagenham to the theatre from 1 to 3 October, the uplifting British musical comedy built around the real 1968 strike by female sewing machinists at Ford’s Dagenham plant that helped force through the Equal Pay Act. It follows the same company’s well-reviewed run of The Great British Bake Off Musical earlier this year. 

For an alternative theatre experience, Hudson and Hudson Magicians bring an evening of close-up magic and mind reading to The Old Woollen on 15 October, a good one if you’re up for an evening of complete bewilderment.

Comedy

City Varieties has a huge comedy lineup this October – there really is something for everyone. Troy Hawke, the character comedian, opens the month on 2 October with his deadpan hotel-concierge tour: Never Stop, Never Change! Followed by Grace Campbell: The Lady is a Tramp on 5 October, Mike Wozniak: The Bench on the 8th, Australian favourite Jimeoin: Ballyhoo! brings his famously loose, almost entirely improvised style on the 13th; Simon Evans is Staring at the Sun plays the 20th; Robert White: ‘THAT’ Gay Autistic Kayboard Tanktop Comedy Guy! lands on the 22nd; and Josh Pugh: Ha, Ha, Yeah Sound closes the month out over two nights on the 27th and 28th. 

Across town, The Glee Club’s schedule is also worth checking out. Celya AB: We Must Stop Meeting Like This plays on 8 October; the Live at the Apollo regular brings her sharp, confessional style; and Barry From Watford: Shooting From The New Hip follows on the 22nd, before Morgan Rees: What A Bummer arrives with his hugely anticipated brand-new show on the 29th.

Live Music

At first direct bank arena there’s plenty going on. The Rock Orchestra opens proceedings on 1 October, followed in quick succession by The Pussycat Dolls (2 Oct), Westlife (6 Oct), The World of Hans Zimmer (8 Oct), Duran Duran (24 Oct), Korn (26 Oct), Suede and Manic Street Preachers on a co-headline run (30 Oct), and Paul Heaton with the Lightning Seeds on the 31st. In the midst of all that, physicist Brian Cox brings his Emergence tour to the same stage on 10 October, trading amps for astrophysics for one night only.

On a smaller scale, City Varieties has a strong run of its own: Portland, Oregon-based country-soul act The Delines play on 4 October, the 16-piece Northern Swing Orchestra brings a full big band sound to the same stage on the 10th, and Shaun Ryder plays on the 14th – the Happy Mondays frontman turning spoken-word raconteur for an evening. Brudenell Social Club hosts Jim Jones All Stars on 8 October, and student favourites Against the Current play Leeds Beckett University on the 31st.

Art and culture

Black History Month in Leeds sees Women of Soul play LeftBank on Saturday 3 October, bringing together original scene legends, lifelong soul enthusiasts and a new generation of Soul Sisters and Rude Girls for six hours of records, dancing and community. Expect Northern Soul, Motown, R&B, ska and popular soul tracks spinning from 6 pm until late. Also on 3 October at Leeds Playhouse: Roots to Rhythm – 40 years of Black Music Festival celebrates four decades of black music, culture and community in Leeds through a special exhibition and live conversation. At the other end of the month, British rap and grime artist Dizzee Rascal comes to Leeds O2 Academy on 30 October as part of his We Want Bass tour.

As part of Leeds Season of Culture, Poetry Walk, Kirkstall! leads a guided literary walk through the village on 22 October, pairing poetry with the area’s industrial and monastic history. The same day, Into the Wild: Seacroft Music and Art Parade brings a community procession of music, costume, puppetry and art to Seacroft, welcoming special musical guests from Leeds’ twin city of Lille, France.

If you’re into collectables, Toy Art UK sets up at Leeds Marriott Hotel on 24 October for a one-day showcase of the UK’s designer and resin toy scene, featuring sofubi, keshi and hand-painted art figures, with the artists themselves on hand to talk through how the work gets made. It’s the perfect alternative Halloween outing if you’re after something a little different from a pumpkin trail.

Halloween

Thackray Lates: Grave Expectations on 29 October is the latest in a Lates series that has sold out seven times running! Expect a ‘novel’ 18+ evening of talks, hands-on crafts and a late bar to die for, built around the darker, stranger corners of medical history. Come dressed as your favourite spooky character for an evening of monstrous fun.

Over at The Old Woollen, Not Truly Dead: Candlelit Stories for Halloween settles in on 28 October with three ghost stories by M R James told by candlelight in the old mill building, while Left Bank hosts a fun-packed Mad World Halloween Special on 30 October in the perfect setting – an atmospheric deconsecrated church.

If you’re after frightfully good fun, however, Carriageworks Theatre will stage Deepest Fears: Ghost Stories on 9 and 10 October featuring two classic tales of terror, while Leeds Scare Maze, opening the same week (running from 9 October through to 1 November), invites you to check into the Horror Motel for jump scares aplenty.

For something less terrifying and more hands-on, Terminus Tap Room and Bottle Shop in Meanwood will run Ceramic Pumpkin Painting on 14 October. And for the little ones, Leeds Museums and Galleries have built a programme you could fill an entire half term around:

• Temple Newsam leads with a Ghosts of Temple Newsam Tour (12+) from 2 to 18 October, tracing the darker stories behind the estate’s four centuries of history, before Halloween at Temple Newsam and a set of after-hours Halloween Cellar Tours (12+) take over the house itself for the final week, from 24 October to 1 November. 

• Lotherton follows a similar arc, with a Pumpkin Patch filling the grounds from 3 to 25 October before the estate turns properly Spellbound for its closing week.

• Leeds City Museum runs a Pumpkin Competition on 1 October, then a Glow in the Dark Trail through the galleries from 24 October to 1 November

• Kirkstall Abbey gets its own after-dark Nocturnal Creatures Trail winding through the ruins across the same final week, which, whatever else is on your list, is worth doing at least once for the setting alone.

October Half Term

Leeds Industrial Museum becomes a small autumn festival of its own. Autumn Leaf Luminaries and a Scarecrow Trail both begin on 24 October, while the ever-popular Mystery Matinees start the same day at the museum’s miniature picture house (running every day of the school holidays).

27 to 29 October brings a run of drop-in activities including Shadow Art sessions at Leeds City Museum and a Night Creatures evening at Leeds Discovery Centre on the 29th, if you’ve not yet had your fill of things that come out after dark. Thackray Museum of Medicine runs a Mushroom Masterpiece Workshop on 26 and 27 October as part of its Mushroom Magic half-term activities.

Carriageworks has the theatrical side of half term covered, with The Littlest Yak, an adaptation of the award-winning book, taking to the stage on 24 and 25 October. City Varieties follows with The Giant Bubble Show on 25 October and the Nick Cope Family Show on 29 October, both reliable ways to fill an afternoon with under-eights.

Elsewhere, first direct bank arena hosts Steve Backshall’s Deadly Live! on 25 October, the naturalist’s touring stage show built around close encounters with alarming animals, while Leeds Grand Theatre hosts a live performance of How to Train Your Dragon on 27 October.