City Event
Compass Festival
A festival of live art and interactive encounters in Leeds to reflect and celebrate the places, people, history and stories of our city.
With an ethos that everyone can enjoy contemporary live art, Compass Festival brings interactive encounters to Leeds hosted in cultural venues, civic buildings, and out on the city streets. Animating the city with live installations, events allow the public to interact and get fully involved in weird and wonderful adventurous art.
Every event is free to access, encouraging enquiry, play and contemplation in a range of settings where we’re used to living, working and walking. There are events in libraries, the markets, shopping centres and independent bars, from the thought provoking and entertaining, to feats of madness!
You might find yourself on a bus journey taking directions on your mobile phone, ending up in an exhibition in a Bramley house, observing an appeal lodged by an American Signal Crayfish against its murder conviction, or watching a Finnish film in a coffee roasting house. Anything goes.
“Our projects are interactive which means that you don’t just watch something, you take part in it and make it happen. We put work in public places so everyone can see and take part. We explore ideas that matter to us all and encourage connections between strangers. We invite you to think, feel, play and see the world from a different angle.”— Compass Live Art
Compass Festival is now in its fifth edition, seeing thousands of people attend and it has become a much loved feature of the cultural calendar in Leeds. Bringing local, national and international artists together the project also encourages footfall in independent and smaller venues in the city, with Arts Council England, Leeds City Council, Leeds Beckett University, Leeds 2023, and Leeds BID working together to support these exploration of new and exciting creativity.
