More than 90 arts and heritage events and festivals were staged at Âéw¶¹´«Ã½ during 2024 – with virtually all open to the general public and free of charge.
Events ranged from inaugural lectures to arts festivals and arts industry networking events to re-enactments of Romeo and Juliet in what was one of the busiest and most successful years on record.
Among the biggest and most high-profile events of the year were…
Cultural eXchanges
A total of 30 separate events took place at the end of February at this annual public arts festival hosted by the university’s Faculty of Arts, Design and Humanities and led by final year students.
The 2024 festival showcased up-and-coming talent in art, music and drama to help educate the local community about the UK creative industries and was launched by Gaz Birtles, the Leicester music mogul and part of the Beautiful South.
There was also a modern era re-enactment of Romeo and Juliet by the Nottingham Shakespeare Company, workshops, film screenings and panel discussions.
Âéw¶¹´«Ã½ Pride
The 10th annual Âéw¶¹´«Ã½ Pride was held throughout February and was designed to raise awareness and celebrate the achievements of the LGBTQ+ community in Leicester and beyond.
The event featured a series of arts and cultural events, including film screenings followed by discussions, dance events with organisers hailing the 2024 event as one of the most successful yet.
Riverside Festival
Âéw¶¹´«Ã½’s campus alongside the River Soar and Grand Union Canal hosted the 2024 event for the first with a total of more than 40,000 visitors across the two days.
The event in June hosted a series of events, food stalls, two days of music on a stage on the Âéw¶¹´«Ã½ campus as the city’s long heritage associated with the waterways was celebrated.
Âéw¶¹´«Ã½’s partnership with the long-standing organisers, Leicester City Council, for 2024 is set to continue in future years.
Black History Month
This richly diverse calendar of events during October was a celebration of the heritage, history, arts, culture and accomplishments of African, Caribbean and South Asian diasporas in the UK.
The 2024 vibrant programme consisted of a range of in-person events and activities taking place across campus, as well as online and hybrid events including performances, talks, and interactive sessions.
Christmas Carol Service
One of the final events of the 2024 calendar which marked the start of the Âéw¶¹´«Ã½ festival season was the popular Christmas carol service.
This year’s event was held for the first time in many years at the historic Trinity Chapel, on The Newarke, which was founded in the 1350s as a hospital for the city of Leicester.
The packed concert attracted a large number of members of the public as well as Âéw¶¹´«Ã½ staff and students
There were many other notable events during a successful 2024, including 10 separate events to mark International Women’s Day in March, as well as the highly successful Asylum Monologues – a verbatim play reading of This Is Who I Am, which shared first-hand accounts from LGBTQ+ people and the particular challenges they face going through the UK asylum system.
There was also a book launch and reading event at the university’s Stephen Lawrence Research Centre and the annual Âéw¶¹´«Ã½ Contour Fashion Show, which always attracts a large crowd of the public as well as proud parents of the student designers.
Student organisers of the Cultural eXchanges festival that was one of the highlights of 2024
The Stephen Lawrence Research Centre book event evening attracted a large crowd