offbeat-festival-video-firstframe.png

 

OffBeat Festival

Oxford’s festival of local voices, new talent and limitless creativity

Offbeat is an exciting artistic partnership between three Oxford theatres — the Old Fire Station, Oxford Playhouse, and New Theatre Oxford.

It supports emerging talent, encourages local artists, provides a platform for new voices, and gives the public a chance to see bold new performances that take risks and push boundaries.

Offbeat 2024 ran from September 9th-15th and was a jam-packed week of wild and wonderful productions, activities and fun-filled events.

Check back soon to find our about our plans for next year and information on how you can apply to be part of the festival.

Offbeat 2024 ran from Sept 9th -15th at the Old Fire Station, BT Studio at the Playhouse, and New Theatre, plus on Gloucester Green.

With a bumper crop of exciting performances, late-night open mic events, interactive art and crafts activities and family-friendly events, it was a total blast.

What’s offbeat?

Offbeat began in 2016, from a partnership between Old Fire Station, Oxford and Oxford Playhouse. Since then it’s gone from strength to strength with New Theatre Oxford coming on board in 2022.

The festival supports emerging talent, encourages local artists, provides a platform for new voices, and gives the public a chance to see bold new performances that take risks and push boundaries.   

We’re here to support new, established, local and national talent get their shows to the stage by offering funding to artists to develop new work, facilitating skill-sharing sessions and workshops, and offering networking opportunities to meet other artists. We’re keen to hear new voices in theatre, dance, comedy, music, spoken word or any other performing art, and we especially welcome local artists hoping to take their first steps onto the stage.

Offbeat has been supporting artists with seed funding since 2019 and in 2024 introduced a series of free workshops for supported artists to help them build skills and take the next step in their performing careers.