Outburst Arts

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The 19th Annual Outburst Q***r Arts Festival 14-22 November 2025 The 16th Annual OUTBURST will take place 11-19 November 2022

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OUTBURST Q***R ARTS FESTIVAL is an annual explosion of q***r art and performance in Belfast, Northern Ireland/ the North/ here. We showcase great local and international q***r work and support the development of q***r arts at home and internationally. Email us at: [email protected]

05/08/2026

We are loving the sights outside our city centre office this week with the Fleadh giving immaculate community and collective vibes.
And we loved being part of it last night in the stunning The Commons at Ballynafeigh for Fleadh Fringe, with a beautiful SOLD OUT performance by Richard O’Leary of his new show Blarney, Bullets & Turkish Baths. (So many tears!)
Thanks to eveyone who came along, to for being a national treasure, to the gang at The Duncairn who are doing a great job managing the Fringe events and to Belfast City Council for the Fringe support.

Art is the best non-prescription medicine in the world.
Sláinte!

22/07/2026

Richard O’Leary’s Fleadh Fringe event with Outburst at The Commons, BLARNEY, BULLETS & TURKISH BATHS, just sold the 100th and final ticket!

See you there on the 4th and if you’re coming along remember
- there will be food stalls outside, come early for a bite
- the bar at The Commons is alcohol-free but if you want to go for a drink before or after there are 3 pubs within 3 mins walk of the venue
- If you have any ticketing issues or questions, please contact the booking office on your ticket for Fringe events
- We advise you to walk or use public transport during Fleadh week, as parking on the Ormeau Road itself will be limited

***rart

15/07/2026

⚡️News Flash ⚡️
We’ve been able to reconfigure the venue space and can now release another 40 tickets for our Fleadh Fringe show BLARNEY, BULLETS & TURKISH BATHS by Richard O’Leary!
Get em while you can, babes.
The venue is so beautiful (see photo) congrats to The Commons at Ballynafeigh who have turned the old Methodist Church on the Ormeau Road into Belfast’s most exciting new intimate venue. You are going to love it!
There will be food trucks at the event, so come early and have a bite before the show.
Link in bio for tickets, only £5 thanks to support from Belfast City Council.

09/07/2026

🚨Low ticket alert 🚨
There are only 7 tickets left for our Fleadh Fringe event BLARNEY, BULLETS & TURKISH BATHS, a new storytelling show by the always wonderful Richard O’Leary.
That’s at the Fleadh Fringe South Belfast hub, THE COMMONS on Ormeau Road, at 7pm on August 4th.
Don’t miss out if you’d planned on getting your Q***r Fleadh on!

Full event info and booking: https://outburstarts.com/events-projects/fleadh-fringe-blarney-bullets-turkish-baths/
Tickets are £5

***rart

08/07/2026

Word of the day: syncategorematic; words that have no real meaning on their own, that rely on words around them for meaning, like “only”, “all”, “not”, or “with”.
WITHOUT YOU, I’M NOTHING kinda words. Like Catflap without hot q***r writers.
This is our way to remind you that this is the FINAL SHOUT OUT for your tender/ filthy genius for catflap # 6, our annual publication of new q***r writing with a revolutionary disco heart.
Edited again this year by the inimitable So Mayer.
Dance your wordy way to our superior vena cava, lovelies!

Deadline is midday next Monday July 13.
You’ll find all you need to know for submissions here: https://outburstarts.com/events-projects/catflap-6-open-call/

***rwriting

01/07/2026

A quick heads up that due to the massive response to the festival Open Call this year, we are still making our way through the final bunch of 30 or so applications. We want to give proper time and a personal response to each of the 158 submissions, so we estimate we need an extra week or so for this beyond the anticipated end of June date. Sorry for the delay to those of you still waiting, we aim to have all responses out by next Monday. Thanks for bearing (cating) with us x

21/06/2026

😽NEW EVENT🔥

As part of Belfast’s citywide Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann Fringe events programme, Outburst is excited to present a special one-off performance of a new show by local favourite Richard O’Leary, on Tuesday 4th August in an old church on Ormeau Road.

Are storytellers born or nurtured? Or is it a gift from the fairies?
When loved ones die, which physical possessions do you hold on to? Which stories will continue to be told and who will tell them?

Produced by Outburst for Fleadh Fringe, Richard’s 6th solo show centres his family history in Blarney, Co. Cork and his experience as a fourth-generation traditional Irish storyteller. Through anecdotes and a suitcase full of fascinating objects, this warm, funny and surprising one-man performance asks powerful questions about connection, memory and inheritance, reminding us that what keeps us alive after we’ve gone are the stories that we share about each other.

Full event info and booking: https://outburstarts.com/events-projects/fleadh-fringe-blarney-bullets-turkish-baths/
Tickets are £5 and strictly limited, so get booking as it’s sure to sell out!

With thanks to Úna, Barry and the gang at The Duncairn for all the planning

***rart Belfast City Council

14/06/2026

We’ve been digging our way through the Outburst archives for our 20th birthday and we are finding such amazing memories and incredible treats!
Some of you will barely have been in your teens when we welcomed legendary q***r photographer Del La Grace Volcano to Belfast for the first time in 2014. Instead of putting the work in a gallery, we exhibited Del’s iconic portraits of butches, drag kings, trans men and femmes on phone boxes, billboards and advertising spaces around Belfast city centre, q***rly camouflaged beside high street fashion ads! And Del (in second photo with self portrait) gave a brilliant talk in the Black Box Green Room on intersex bodies and trans imagery, it was so great!

09/06/2026

This image is 20 years old and was a flyer to advertise a meeting in 2006 to get more people involved in running the first Outburst in 2007, before we even had a name for it 😻
A big thank you to everyone who sent a submission for the festival this year. We are working our way through the proposals and hope to respond to you all by the end of June.
Some fun facts!
- We received 158 proposals this year, the highest number yet
- Proposals came from artists and producers in 31 different countries
- The lowest number of applications by art form was theatre, the highest was performance art, with comedy a close second.
- The place with the highest number of applications to arrive in the final hour before the deadline was…Belfast. (Well done, we hope your nerves have settled.)

06/06/2026

Tonight we had a sharing of what happens when five differently brilliant artists hang out together for two weeks and create something from all their conversations.
लुकामारी (Hide & Seek) is an interactive installation in a big tent, with video, photography, sound design and dance, that q***rs the normative timeline and experience of “childhood”. There are so many tender moments in it, from early-teen q***r first loves to intimate little stories that ask big questions. It’s so incredible to watch 5 people who usually work alone bond like a gang of 10 year olds who just met in a field on a sunny day and are best friends by sundown.
Massive thanks to Ellen, Yubraj, Jyoti, Srijana and Mila for throwing themselves into the challenge with so much heart and love, and to Kaalo101, Hunter and Safal for organising everything so amazingly.
😻

This Belfast/ Kathmandu artist collaboration was made possible through British Council’s Connections Through Culture programme. With extra special thanks to Yukta and Nhooja at who have been such committed supporters of q***r artists locally here in Nepal and of connections with Outburst.

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Website

http://www.outburstarts.com/

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