2025 Festival OPEN CALL

The deadline to submit work and events for consideration is 12 midday on Friday 9th May 2025. 

Read the introduction and submission guidelines below and check out the FAQs or email us if you have any questions!

Our email is hello@outburstarts.com

If there’s anything that will better enable you to submit your work, please let us know so that we can reduce or remove barriers to access.

How we programme Outburst Queer Arts Festival

Outburst Queer Arts Festival is a curated week of vital new queer art and culture. We programme work that centres queer ideas and disruptive imagination, especially work that resonates with the creative conversations we need to have now around sexuality and gender: personal, political, collective.

We cook up a mix of work by artists that we’ve seen and can’t wait to share, along with performances, publications, events and happenings that we’ve commissioned or co-developed in collaboration with queer artists and other co-conspirators at home and beyond. We programme performance, theatre, cabaret, visual and sensory art, film, literature events, music, participatory events, digital events, markets, talks, panels and much more.

We also curate some festival events through a focused Open Call, to make sure that the door is always open to artists or ideas not already on our radar.

The festival is responsive each year to what’s happening in the world around us and for queer art and artists. The artforms, platforms and spaces can vary too, with some years being more heavily performance-led and other years focusing more on writing, taking spaces or visual arts. Our programming is all about queer art and liberatory ideas that take risks in form or content and create generous space for us as queer people (and friends) to share, talk and imagine together. How that presents is always changing and that’s exciting.

All of the work we showcase in the festival is work that is new to Belfast, keeping it fresh and vital for audiences and relevant to the moment we are in. We love to make space for creative ideas that take us collectively beyond the normative and imposed binaries. We centre intersectional work that lights up new possibility, poses potent questions, entertains the hell out of people, brings us to unexpected spaces, places and reimagines the possibilities of queer art and queer thinking to transform.

Tender transgressions and beautiful disruptions can come in surprising forms, big and small, loud and quiet, and we’re here for it all.

What we programme

Through the Open Call we programme

• Original work by queer artists, writers, performers, filmmakers, thinkers
• That has not been seen / experienced here before
• That will be finished and available for our programmers to see/ hear/ experience in full by the end of May 31th 2025. This can be in person (for example a work-in-development performance) or digitally (full video/audio/content) and can be made available to us after the initial closing date for applications on May 9th. Some events, such talking events/ panels/ one off happenings, can’t be shared in advance, so demonstrating a track record of producing similar events is sufficient.

We aim find an exciting balance and mix of events that feels right for the year that we’re in, so unfortunately not all submissions will be programmed but we will send a personal response to all proposals.

For any ideas you have that don’t fit the remit for this Open Call, we strongly encourage you to book a Clinic+ zoom session to chat with our team. Have a look at the Clinic+ information to get a sense of what these sessions are for. You can also check out our Brewing showcase call-out, which is specifically for work-in-development.

See FAQs at the bottom of the page for other questions you might have, or email us at hello@outburstarts.com if you’d like additional information.

How to send your submission 

Please send your submission in one single PDF or Word document and attach it in an email to hello@outburstarts.com with Festival Submission 2025 as your email subject.

If you prefer to send a video or audio submission describing your project rather than a written submission, please ensure that it is no more than 7 minutes in duration and that is still includes all of the required information outlined below.

If you need to send a large file (videos or images) in support of your submission, please include a Google drive or Dropbox link in the text of your PDF or Word submission. Time-sensitive file download links such as WeTransfer are not suitable, as the link may have expired before we can access it.

In your PDF or Word doc (or audio/ video file) please include

1. Your name, location and contact email.

2. Up to 400 words about your proposed work or event. You can send a detailed tour pack/ event pack instead if you have one.

3. Any documentation of your event, for example a video or images.

4. A short summary of your previous work. You can send a one-page artist or company CV instead if preferred.

5. Your basic budget for presenting your work, including artist fees, tech and venue needs and other essential related costs such as travel and accommodation if required. It’s okay if you don’t know the exact costs for everything but a basic outline will help us to build a picture of what your event will need in terms of tech, set, get-in etc. Please note that we can only cover presentation costs at the festival, we do not cover development fees for work in the open call.

6. Film only: If you are submitting a film for consideration, please send a screening link and press kit if you have one. We do not charge submission fees.

After submission

We’ll send an email confirmation within 7 days that your submission has been received.

We read submissions as they come in and may be in touch before the closing date if we’d like to discuss your submission further.

We aim to reply to all submissions by the end of May.

If you haven’t heard from us by the end of May, please email hello@outburstarts.com so that we can ensure your submission has been received and read. We’ll still consider your submission after the deadline if there has been a tech issue on our system.

FAQs

 

Q: What kind of financial support can you offer to bring my event to the festival?

We can cover: an artist / performance / exhibition fee; essential travel and accommodation costs; venue hire; install and tech costs; other essentials. Because all of these costs will be covered and a guaranteed fee is offered, all box office from events goes back into support for artists through our work.

Q: How many performances / shows / days should I budget for?

Generally for incoming events we programme one performance/ screening but it totally depends on the project, the ideal size of audience, the venue / space, digital, duration etc. If you’d like to include options in your budget, e.g. costs for one performance, two performances etc, go ahead.

Q: Do I need to find my own venue?

No. We have great venue partners and generally have preferred venues and spaces for events, so we’ll work with you on that. We’re also open to site-specific work and work in non-traditional spaces. You can include your ideas of the type of space that might work best for you, or somewhere you have a preference for, and we’ll discuss possibilities if your work is programmed. If you have any essential needs, for example rigging for aerial work or stage size minimum, please include these details in your submission as it may impact where your event can be held.

Q: Can I just put on an event on my own and have it listed in the festival programme?

No. All events in our programme carefully commissioned, developed or hand-picked to create an exciting and relevant mix of work for audiences and to support artists making vital new work.

Q: Do you accept submissions from artists all over the world?

Outburst is an international festival and we particularly want to make space for work that de-centres the global north and anglosphere in queer narratives and thinking. Our visiting international artists are often supported to travel by cultural agencies and partnerships (British Council, Finnish Institute, venue and university partners etc) or have other established touring support or grants to cover basics like international flights. While this isn’t essential in order to submit work, our budget considerations and environmental concerns do limit the number of artists and companies we can support to travel in any given year. For artists who don’t have any touring support of their own and want to participate in-person, we generally favour solo performers. We are very happy to look at all submissions and explore possibilities, including ways that you can contribute remotely or without travel.

Q: Do I need to have my own insurance beyond Outburst’s overall insurance?

We always recommend that you have own cover for your own practice/ touring / peace of mind but it’s not essential unless your event risk assessment includes specific hazards, for example explosives, fire, projectiles. We will discuss this in more detail with you if your work is programmed.

Q: I’m just starting to make work and haven’t produced something before. Can I still send a submission?

We always make space for emerging artists and new work, everyone has to start somewhere! If you haven’t produced an event or piece of work before, we recommend that you apply for the Brewing showcase instead of the Open Call, as it can offer more support for your development. You can also request one of our Clinic + sessions for a relaxed chat about where you are at now with your practice and how we can help or signpost you to support.

Q: Can I send you a script?

We love new queer writing but for the Open Call we don’t accept scripts for productions that are not yet in development. Drop us an email instead and we can have a chat.

Q: I’m writing a funding application for this work, can I get a letter of support from Outburst?

We can only provide officaial letters of support for work that we’re co-producing or have already confirmed for the programme. You are welcome to say that you are submitting the work you are making or touring for the Outburst Open Call.

Q: Can I still submit an event or idea if I’m not a queer artist/ company?   

Our strategic focus is support for queer artists but we accept submissions from non queer-led artistic companies who are touring or presenting specific new queer work that has been written and developed or presented by queer artists/ writers and where there is a clear understanding of and committment to queer ideas beyond just representation. We don’t programme new productions of established classics or older works, for example well known plays, unless there is an exceptional new approach to staging the work.

Q: We’re a venue / organisation / non-LGBTQI+ group / community / agency that would love to do something at the festival but we’re not sure how that works. Can you help?

Yes! Partnerships can lead to unexpected and brilliant new possibilities, especially when they help to connect queer artists and creative ideas with new audiences, new communities and new spaces. Say hi at hello@outburstarts.com and we can arrange a chat.

Q: Can I submit something for a festival beyond 2025?

We know that for more ambitious co-productions, exhibitions etc. it’s important to discuss possibilities well in advance to ensure adequate support and operational planning. Instead of submitting to this Open Call, drop us an email with a general summary of your plans and we can have a chat.

Q: I don’t have an event to submit but I’d love to get involved in Outburst in other ways! Is that possible?

Become a festival volunteer! Drop an email to hello@outburstarts.com with some info about yourself. Volunteer registration usually opens in September/ October but we can add you to the mailing list for that.