Sheffield's Out of this World festival has been running for eleven years now, and the 2026 edition landed on Sunday 25 October, when the city centre handed over to sci-fi, magic and Halloween for the day. It is a free family event, which is a big part of its appeal, and it ran from 10:30am to 5:30pm. The weather, however, forced a bit of a plan B: Storm Boelo meant the outdoor festival had to be reconfigured as an indoor one, with the Grade I-listed Town Hall, built in Victorian gothic style, and the Winter Garden on Surrey Street taking the brunt of the work. A funfair that was supposed to park on Fargate was cancelled before it could even be erected, and dozens of gazebos and awnings earmarked for Pinstone Street never went up.
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Even with the weather throwing a spanner in the works, the festival kept its three zones spread across the centre. The sci-fi, comic and gaming zone sat across the Winter Garden, Tudor Square, the Town Hall and the Peace Gardens, with comic book artists, costumers, trade stalls and displays of heroes and villains, from Darth Vader and Stormtroopers to Ghostbusters and superheroes. The magic and illusion zone took over Millennium Square, the Town Hall and the Peace Gardens, where UK magicians and illusionists put on sleight of hand, fire and balance feats, alongside spell sessions for young witches and wizards and make-and-take conjuring workshops, with free tickets handed out by the steward by the Town Hall. And the Halloween zone ran through Town Hall Square, the Town Hall, the Peace Gardens, Pinstone Street and Surrey Street, with spooky attractions, Halloween fancy dress and 'Little Monsters' running loose.
Two of the venues are worth knowing if you have not been. The Winter Garden, at 90 Surrey Street, is one of the largest temperate glasshouses built in the UK over the last hundred years and the largest urban glasshouse anywhere in Europe, housing more than 2,000 plants from around the world; it was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 22 May 2003 and has been Grade II listed since 1972. The Peace Gardens, on Pinstone Street, sit right in front of the Town Hall and take in the Goodwin Fountain, with its 89 individual jets, and The Holberry Cascades, and form part of Sheffield's 'Gold Route'.
It is a festival that can pull in up to 20,000 people, and this year's edition was no different, with the cosplay troupe Mos Eisley Misfits among the crowd. The full programme for 2026 was announced in early autumn, with updates fed through the @VisitSheffield channels, so it is worth keeping an eye on them if you want to catch the next one. For a free day out that hands the city centre over to the otherworldly, it is hard to beat, even when the weather tries to get in the way.
Published Date
26 October 2026
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