FKA twigs Gets Meltdown 2027. First, Meltdown Goes to Six Grassroots Rooms From Bethesda to Sheffield

FKA twigs will curate and headline Meltdown 2027, the Southbank Centre's artist-curated festival, from June 10 to 20, 2027 in London, the Southbank Centre announced on October 20. Before she gets there, Meltdown leaves London for the first time: six two-day Hometown Meltdown events in grassroots venues, December 2026 to March 2027, made with Music Venue Trust.

She becomes Meltdown's 32nd curator, following the 2026 edition run by Harry Styles. The 2027 season already includes Lang Lang, Patti Smith and Philip Glass, NME reports. Line-ups and ticket on-sale dates come later.

The cultural and artistic clash in this city is like no other. Where cultures, sounds, stories and traditions from all over the world meet, collide and transform one another.FKA twigs, Southbank Centre 2027 season announcement

In the same statement she traced the London that made her, “from Croydon College, to performing in underground cabaret clubs, dancing till sunrise in warehouses on the docks,” and said she intends to bring “a slice of all that has raised me and continues to inspire me.”

What is Hometown Meltdown, and where does it go?

The Southbank's release says six artists will each curate a two-day festival in a town or city, and a grassroots venue, “that shaped their artistic development across England, Wales and Scotland.” The first run of curators and rooms:

The announcement calls grassroots venues “the lifeblood and creative R&D for the UK's live music industry.” Each curator will mix local artists with more established names from elsewhere, NME reports. Beverley Whitrick, Music Venue Trust's chief operating officer, said these rooms “are often overlooked in conversations about the cultural infrastructure for the UK,” and called the Southbank's backing “a powerful statement about the music ecosystem.”

Why send a London festival to small rooms now?

Because the small-room circuit is thin, and it has gaps. Music Venue Trust's 2025 annual report, published in January 2026, counted 801 grassroots music venues trading as of July 31, 2025, down from 810 a year earlier. Over that year, 30 venues closed for good and 48 more stopped working as grassroots gig rooms. 69 new ones were recognised in the same period.

The same report found that 59% of grassroots venues, 475 rooms, now run with no major promoter activity. It says the main touring circuits have shrunk to London, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Sheffield and a few other cities, while whole regions across Wales, Scotland and the South West “have fallen silent.” Three of the six Hometown stops are in those regions: Bethesda in Wales, Dundee in Scotland and Falmouth in the South West. Twelve days will not rebuild a touring map, but they put a national brand's name and its audience on rooms that tours skip. For a look at three of the rooms on that circuit, see Glasgow, Manchester and London's small stages.

Who has curated Meltdown lately?

Meltdown dates to 1993. Its curators have included David Bowie, Patti Smith, Yoko Ono and David Byrne. The recent run:

Meltdown's first trip outside London goes to the rooms the touring map skips.

Mark Ball, the Southbank's artistic director, framed the season as an answer to isolation: “When we gather together to experience great culture together we build community.” London's own festival map is contested too, as Victoria Park's undecided festival bid shows. What to watch next: the six Hometown line-ups, then FKA twigs's first names for June.