Brighton BASH Carnival: Black culture at St Ann's Well

The Brighton BASH Carnival is back for its sixth year, and it's one of the more colourful dates on the summer calendar. Hosted by the Black Anti-Racism Community Organisation, better known as BARCO, it's a family-friendly day built around music, dance, food and community, and it's free to get into, with donations encouraged.

This year's edition falls on Saturday 25 July, running from 11am to 8pm at St Ann's Well Gardens on Somerhill Road. The theme is 'Water', a nod to Brighton and Hove's relationship with the sea and the way water connects people across continents, cultures and generations. The BARCO board put it simply: 'Water has no borders. It moves, adapts and brings people together, and that is the energy we want to create at Brighton BASH Carnival this year.'

The programme is a full day. There are live performances across several stages, with popular UK artists sharing the bill with local talent, alongside international food traders, workshops, an expanded children's area and the flagship carnival parade. There's also a short moment of reflection centred on hope and unity, so it's not all non-stop.

Beyond the day itself, the carnival doubles as a launchpad. BARCO is using it to introduce 'Roots & Routes', a 12-month, internship-style scheme backed by Arts Council funding, which gives emerging performers, curators and event professionals hands-on experience in putting together a grassroots, community-led carnival.

It's worth knowing who's behind it. BARCO is a Brighton-based, Black-led community interest company set up in the summer of 2020, and it works to tackle racism while celebrating and strengthening Black culture through community advocacy, cultural organising, education and collective care. They define 'Black' as Black African, Black Caribbean, people who identify as belonging to the Black African diaspora, or people of Black mixed-race heritage. The event is supported by Brighton and Hove Albion and Brighton and Hove City Council, and the University of Brighton has joined as a partner, with Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Kene Igweonu describing the carnival as 'one of the clearest expressions of what our partnership with BARCO is about'.

If you're not ready to call it a day when the gardens close, the official afterparty, 'The Brighton BASH Carnival: The Second Wave', keeps things going at Komedia on Gardner Street. Doors open at 11pm, it's 18+, and tickets are £10 in advance or £15 on the door, with DJs rotating through reggae, dub, afrobeats, hip hop and sounds from across the diaspora. Every penny from the afterparty, and from the carnival raffle, goes straight back to BARCO, which is how they keep the main event free for everyone.

So, if you're after a day that's as much about community as it is about music, St Ann's Well Gardens is the place to be on the 25th. It's free, it's family-friendly, and it's one of the city's biggest celebrations of Black culture.