FESTIVAL INFO

Welcome to Future Now, Future Yard’s annual music festival that celebrates the best new music happening now, right in the heart of Birkenhead. This will be the fifth time that we’ve flooded Birkenhead with new music on August Bank Holiday weekend, and this year we’re channelling the spirit of the original festival that launched Future Yard way back in 2019.

This year’s Future Now takes place on Saturday 24th and Sunday 25th August, with five stages split across four venues: Birkenhead Town Hall, Joy, the Future Yard Live Room and our outdoor Garden stage, as well as the festival hub in the brand-new Make Hamilton building.

Download full festival stage times: Saturday | Sunday

Make Hamilton | 12:00pm – 12:00am
Make Hamilton hosts the wristband exchange where you can swap your e-ticket for a festival wristband. This grants you access to all the other venues. You will not be able to access the other venues without a wristband, so we recommend making Make Hamilton your first stop in your visit to Future Now. The entrance to Make Hamilton is on Hinson Street and the building lies just two doors down from Future Yard itself, on the corner of Argyle and Hinson Street (in the old Riverside Office Building). In there you’ll also find a small bar, artist and FY merch stalls, an Onomatoposter gig poster screen print exhibition (hosted by Toucan Tango) and DJs spinning throughout the weekend.

Future Yard hosts two separate festival stages across the weekend, the indoor Live Room stage and the outdoor Garden stage.

FY Live Room | 12:30pm – 11:15pm
The Live Room is able to be accessed via the main venue entrance on 75 Argyle Street, in which you will find a separate bar and indoor seating area (where you’ll be able to see our latest Future Walls exhibition) before heading into the 280-capacity live room. Performances in the Live Room run from 1-11:15pm each day, with the after-party djs taking over as soon as they finish, going ’til late both nights.

FY Garden | 1:00pm – 9:45pm
The Garden stage can be accessed at the clearly marked outdoor entrance directly next to the main Future Yard entrance at 75 Argyle Street, and exited via Henry Street at the back of the building. There is no direct access between the indoor Live Room and the outdoor Garden stage. Alongside the stage, the Garden hosts an outdoor bar with a large seating area, and is the only place at the festival that serves hot food – our vegetarian and vegan pizza kitchen will be open until 9pm and Sparkle And Magic will have a truck serving vegetarian street food in the venue loading bay, accessed via the Garden stage exit on Henry Street.

Birkenhead Town Hall | 4:30pm – 11:00pm
Birkenhead Town Hall is the festival’s main stage. Located directly on Hamilton Square, 5 minutes walk from Future Yard, the stage is accessed on the south-side of the building on Brandon Street (rather than through the main entrance directly on Hamilton Square). Please note – The performance space is in the second floor Assembly Rooms, however lift access is available via the building’s main entrance directly on Hamilton Square. The lift then opens directly outside the stage room on the second floor.

JOY | 1:00pm – 8:00pm
JOY, the smaller of the four festival stages, is situated at 2 Cleveland Street, 5 minutes walk from Future Yard down Argyle Street towards the Mersey. Here you’ll find an indoor bar and there is a small garden area away from the stage for you to have a moment to relax.

All four venues lie within minutes walk of each other in the Hamilton Square/Argyle Street area of Birkenhead, as well as Hamilton Square, Birkenhead Central and Conway Park Merseyrail stations, Birkenhead Bus Station and several car parks. Complete how-to-get-here guide detailing train, bus, taxis, driving and parking details can be found here.

All venues are fully wheelchair accessible. Full accessible info for the entirety of the festival to come.

Read a full breakdown of the festival venues here

This year the festival is part of Wirral Borough of Culture, an ambitious year-long programme of events and activity to spotlight the great creativity and culture that exists in Wirral. We’re incredibly proud to be part of Wirral BoC this year, not least because we were born from the spirit of the first edition in 2019. Future Yard Festival was our first foray, and formed part of the original Borough Of Culture programme; five years on, we’re a living example of the enduring impact of such events, where public investment is channelled into celebrating the power of creativity across the community.

There is a host of great music for you to discover this year, with 60 artists playing over the weekend, and ranging from established indie heavyweights (Everything Everything, Nadine Shah) to up and coming independent artists (Trout, Van Houten, Projector), and all the way to the stars of the future who are currently part of our Propeller artist community (Claire Welles, Thalia’s Grace, BLCK UTAH). But there’s more than just that – Future Now is always about discovery, and about connection to place. We’ll be hosting Onomatoposter screen print gig poster exhibition at Make Hamilton for the duration of the festival, where you’ll be able to come and see amazing artwork from all over the world inspired by some of your favourite artists (you’ll even be able to buy some of them, too). We’ll also have a parallel exhibition of work by local students from Wirral Met College, responding to a brief about Birkenhead. More details of this – and our limited edition merch for this year – will be coming soon.

Full festival schedules will be released at the start of August, along with a map of all the venues. If you have any other questions, please see our FAQ page.

With thanks to our partners who have helped us to bring Future Now to you this year: Wirral Council/Wirral Borough of Culture, Arts Council England, The Learning Foundry, Argyle Satellite Taxis, Kimpton, Morecrofts Solicitors and Smylies.

FESTIVAL INFO

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