6 Music Festival returns to Newcastle in March 2027

BBC Radio 6 Music Festival will return to Newcastle from March 15 to 19, 2027, bringing the station’s flagship live event back to Tyneside after a 12-year absence. The five-day programme will take place across independent and grassroots venues, with performances and DJ sets by new and established artists.

The announcement confirms the host city and dates, but audiences will have to wait for details of who will perform and where. The full line-up and participating venues are due to be revealed in 2027, and the programme will include a night staged in collaboration with BBC Introducing.

Tyneside last hosted the festival in 2015, when events took place in Newcastle and Gateshead. Its return follows a spell in Greater Manchester, where the festival had been based since 2023, moving the focus of the station’s annual gathering back to the North East.

Samantha Moy, head of BBC Radio 6 Music, framed the move as the next chapter in the festival’s celebration of independent venues. In the announcement published by Newcastle City Council, she pointed to the city and region’s musical heritage and creative community, while thanking Greater Manchester’s audiences and venues for hosting previous editions.

The festival began in 2014 and has travelled between cities rather than maintaining a single location throughout its history. Previous hosts include Bristol, Glasgow, Liverpool, Cardiff and London, giving the Newcastle return a place within that wider pattern of taking the station’s live programme around the country.

The announcement also comes after Newcastle hosted the Mercury Prize for a second consecutive year. The city staged the MOBO Awards in 2025, adding another national music event to the background against which the festival’s return has been welcomed locally.

Presenter Lauren Laverne, who grew up in the North East, highlighted music’s importance to the region’s culture and communities. She welcomed the opportunity to return with listeners, artists and fellow presenters, linking the festival to a musical identity that extends beyond the performances themselves.

For Newcastle’s venues and promoters, the event offers an opportunity to put their work before the station’s audience. Jim Mawdsley, the council’s principal adviser for events and culture, said it would showcase the grassroots organisations supporting artists, while pointing to recent Mercury Prize recognition for Sam Fender, Jade and Knats.

The programme will also reach people outside the host venues through highlights on BBC Radio 6 Music, BBC Sounds and BBC Music’s YouTube channel. The next major announcement will establish the artists and locations that turn the confirmed five-day framework into a full festival schedule.