This website uses cookies. Read more about our cookie/privacy policy.

Accept and Close

The Sheffield culture guide written by in-the-know locals

Migration Matters Festival

Migration Matters 2024, photo by Smart Banda

In 2007 Sheffield became the UK’s first City of Sanctuary – a place that welcomes asylum-seekers and refugees, that offers a hand to people in need of safety. Held around Refugee Week each June, Migration Matters Festival is a celebration of diversity and the positive impact migration and refugees have in Sheffield.

The festival launched in 2016, the year of the Brexit referendum and Syrian refugee crisis. Each year the Migration Matters programme brings communities together over fantastic, globe-spanning variety of theatre, music, dance, workshops, exhibitions, and more.

Come back soon for dates and details of Migration Matters 2026.

You might also like...

Resistanz

Fri. 3 April 2026 — Sun. 5 April 2026

Corporation

A festival of industrial, electro and alternative music. Taking over Corporation – Sheffield's iconic home of rock – for Easter bank holiday weekend.

Pinball Park

Florence Blanchard's playful, 1000-square-metre floor painting makes Pinball Park come alive with energy. With its pops of colour and fantastic flowing forms, this mural – titled Bounce! – is a truly joyful feature in the Cultural Industries Quarter.

Yorkshire Artspace: Persistence Works

Over a hundred artists have made their home at Yorkshire Artspace. Once a year, its two sites become galleries for Open Studios weekend, a fantastic opportunity to see inside the workspaces of some of Sheffield’s creative residents.

Tommi Bryson

A theatremaker whose work centres on community, representation and comedy. Tommi co-hosts monthly variety performance night Sounds Queer, and is currently developing a one-woman musical about a trans Disney princess.