Sound of Belfast runs from Thursday November 5th to Sunday November 15th. Here are 15 events worth planning around, from a punk exhibition to a five-hour listening party.
The festival, produced by Oh Yeah Music Centre, returns for 11 days celebrating Belfast’s music as a UNESCO City of Music. This year’s programme is a little smaller, with 55 events across 14 venues, and is built around supporting artists, promoters and venues.
Festival creative producer Claire Hall and Oh Yeah CEO Charlotte Dryden talked us through it on the Nialler9 podcast, and a few of the picks below came up in that conversation. They’re listed in date order, with a few related events grouped together.
Full list of Sound of Belfast events.
Alter Your Native Land: Punk In The North 1976-2026
Thursday November 5th, Oh Yeah Music Centre – exhibition launch 6pm (free), party 8pm (£12, 18+)
The festival opens with 50 years of punk in the North. The legend that is Stuart Bailie, music journalist and Oh Yeah co-founder, presents a photo exhibition of artists from The Undertones, Stiff Little Fingers and The Outcasts to Therapy?, Ash, Chalk, Problem Patterns and Tramp, shot on film and hand-printed in his darkroom. There’s also a fanzine to go with it.
The Sounds of the Exhibition party follows at 8pm with Brian Young, Tramp, Éabha, DJ Terri Hooley and Stuart Bailie, plus surprise guests.
Sonic East with Cosign, MisS TKA and Viva Dean
Friday November 6th, H&W Staff Club – 7pm, £12, 18+
An evening of electronic music from women and non-binary artists emerging in Belfast, presented with Eastside Arts at the Harland and Wolff Staff Club. Belfast producer Martha Greer makes immersive indie-electronic music as Cosign and launches an EP at this event, Viva Dean is a sonic artist and the founder of the feminist sound technology project Synthesize_Her, and MisS TKA mixes repetitive electronics, broken techno and folk.
Vein of Folly 2 album launch
Friday November 6th, Accidental Theatre – 7:30pm, £12, 18+
Leo Miyagee and Eulogy launch Vein of Folly 2, an album about how UK hip hop has evolved. The night starts with a curated listening session in which Miyagee talks through the sounds and ideas behind selected tracks and what growing up with the genre was like, and ends with a live set.
Classic Album Night: Snow Patrol’s Eyes Open at 20
Friday November 6th, Oh Yeah Music Centre – 7:30pm, £15, 18+
Twenty years after Snow Patrol released their best-selling album, six local artists each perform their own versions of songs from it: Reevah, Anna Bradley, Nathan O’Regan, Jack Devlin, Ghoul Girl (Lucy Gaffney) and James Gitari of Tribal Ting. The Classic Album Nights at Oh Yeah have previously covered Radiohead’s OK Computer and Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks.
JuJu Jazz Kissa
Saturday November 7th and Sunday November 8th, Vault Studios – free, all ages
A pop-up Japanese-style jazz kissa, a café built around listening to records, billed as the first of its kind in Belfast and Ireland. Hosted by Philip Arneill, the Belfast-born photographer and writer behind the Tokyo Jazz Joints project, it plays bop, spiritual and soul jazz on vinyl while you have a chilled out time and a coffee.
Sessions run Saturday 11am to 4pm and 6pm to 10pm, and Sunday 11am to 3pm and 4pm to 8pm.
The Budvar Music Trail
Saturday November 7th to Saturday November 14th, various venues
New this year, the Budvar Music Trail is a run of free and affordable gigs. Everyone loves a city music trail that you can leap around the place and have a buzz right? Here’s what’s on, and the full trail is here.
- TESSIO and Piaras Ó Lorcáin – Saturday November 7th, The Green Room at The Black Box, 7pm
- With A Fada presents New Éire with Alice Sloan, House of Neptune, Bulbs and Penny’s – Saturday November 7th, Oh Yeah Music Centre, 8pm
- Rarewitch live, hosted by Stephen McCauley – Sunday November 8th, Oh Yeah Music Centre, 7pm
- Transient Visitors and Blackmoon resident DJs, with Gig Buddies Belfast – Tuesday November 10th, The Black Box, 7pm
- Cora Harkin – Thursday November 12th, The Black Box, 7pm
- Conor Mallon and Dara Dubh – Thursday November 12th, Oh Yeah Music Centre, 7:30pm
- Mark Hegan plus support – Saturday November 14th, The Black Box, 8pm
Robocobra Quartet’s listening party and VANTA (below) are also part of the trail.
Scratch My Progress Vol 14
Tuesday November 10th, Oh Yeah Music Centre – 7pm, free, 18+
The annual showcase for Oh Yeah’s talent development programme, which is supported by PRS Foundation and IMRO. This year’s acts, Pinsleep, Lord Jane, The Thing Is… and GUSH, perform the compilation EPs they recorded as part of the nine-month programme.
As Charlotte Dryden told us on the podcast, the acts get weekly mentoring, a professionally recorded track and rehearsal time, and this year’s mentor is Ben Magee, who manages Chalk and Joshua Burnside. It also works as a warm-up for the NI Music Prize the next night.
Northern Ireland Music Prize
Wednesday November 11th, Ulster Hall – 7pm, £25, 18+
The flagship night of the festival, with live performances and awards in categories including Album of the Year, Single of the Year and Live Act of the Year. The Album of the Year shortlist includes Ash, Chalk, Dani Larkin, Foy Vance, Huartan, Joshua Burnside, Kneecap and Shamrock Showband. Full shortlist here.
Hanna Tams (Palestine) and Huartan
Thursday November 12th, Cultúrlann – 7pm, £10, 18+
Palestinian dance meets music from Huartan, the Belfast group who blend Irish traditional music with electronica and reinterpret Irish-language songs, performing in masks. Hanna Tams founded the Douban Dance Company in Jerusalem in 2012 and runs dance programmes for young Palestinians. A Q&A follows the performance.
Friday November 13th: Robocobra Quartet, Alana Henderson and Ryan Vail
Three releases get a night out on the same Friday.
Robocobra Quartet’s Hundred Pieces listening party – Late Cafe, 3:30pm to 9pm, all ages
Robocobra Quartet‘s new album has 100 tracks and runs for five hours, and it gets played in full in a relaxed hang-out with the band and friends. It was inspired by the durational art of Marina Abramović and her memoir Walk Through Walls.
Alana Henderson’s Fine album launch – H&W Staff Club, 7:30pm, £15, 18+
Alana Henderson‘s independently made debut gets its first live outing with a full band, including the singles ‘Once in a House on Fire’, ‘Appetite’ and ‘Not Going Anywhere’. Rachael Boyd supports.
Ryan Vail’s album launch: After Hours – a secret location, 8:30pm, £10, 18+
Ryan Vail launches his new album with a live electronic set and special guests from Belfast and beyond, in an intimate, limited-capacity space. The venue will be revealed closer to the night.
Don’t Sleep, curated by Shine and BBC Introducing
Friday November 13th, Ulster Sports Club – 7:30pm, £12.50, 18+
A new music showcase hosted by Taylor Johnson of BBC Introducing. Belfast alt-rock trio Monday’s Child open, followed by Limerick five-piece THEATRE, who blend ethereal rock with folk and shoegaze, and Cork’s BABYRAT, who play sharp riffs and anthemic choruses. Matcha b2b MK close the night with a DJ set.
Duke Special: Songs From The Deep Forest at 20
Saturday November 14th, Mandela Hall – 7pm, £30, 18+
Duke Special plays Songs From The Deep Forest in full to mark its 20th anniversary, with Temperance Society, Chip Bailey and special guests.
VANTA – Where Sound & Light Unfold – Phase 2
Saturday November 14th, Oh Yeah Music Centre – 9pm to 1am, £15 in advance or £20 on the door, 18+
An audio-visual collaboration between Timmy Stewart and Johnny Delaney, who works as The Fully Automatic Model, building the visuals live to Stewart’s music. It debuted at last year’s festival, and Claire Hall said on the podcast that it’s named after Vantablack, the “world’s darkest material.” The organisers describe it as an evolving immersive experience rather than a standard gig.
The New Wave: Gráinne Meyer and Atóg
Sunday November 15th, Oh Yeah Music Centre – 2pm, £10, 14+
The festival closes with a reimagining of the traditional Irish session. Atóg, led by Hana Abri Smith and including Joshua Burnside, Brendan Kerr, Cameron Clark, Catriona Ní Ghribín, J SHIELDS and Neil Óg Martin, perform with the audience seated like a session, so you can see the players and each other. Harpist and composer Gráinne Meyer is also on the bill. Programmer Claire Hall, who named it The New Wave, called it a showcase for artists moving trad into a contemporary space.
Sunday November 15th, evening: Dani Larkin or Reimagining the Belfast Showband
Two options for the last night.
Dani Larkin – Crescent Arts Centre, 7:30pm, £17.50, 18+
The songwriter and producer plays songs from her 2026 album Next Of Kin, which is also on the NI Music Prize shortlist. Dani Larkin has no support listed.
Reimagining the Belfast Showband – H&W Staff Club, 7pm, £15, 18+
Showband veteran George Jones of Clubsound shares memories and stories, with archive film and photographs, and my favs Shamrock Showband reinterpret songs from his repertoire. Trevor Kelly is a special guest. It’s a pilot for a longer-term project on sharing Belfast’s musical heritage across generations.
Full Sound of Belfast schedule.
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005. He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Cara Magazine, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, co-founder of Lumo Club, event curator, Indie Sleaze club promoter, and producer of gigs and monthly listening parties & events in Dublin.
