Southampton's biggest free arts celebration has already come and gone for the year, so if you were hoping to catch it this weekend, you are a little late. The Southampton Mela Festival 2026 took over Hoglands Park on Saturday 18 and Sunday 19 July, and it was free and open to everyone, which is part of why it pulls such a crowd.
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The festival is run by Art Asia, a registered charity with Dahlia Jamil at the helm as Chief Executive, and it is backed by a long list of funders: Arts Council England, Southampton City Council, Go! Southampton, Hampshire & Isle of Wight Constabulary, and Mayflower Theatre & Studios. That support is what keeps it free, and it is described as one of the South of England's most beloved multicultural celebrations, bringing together thousands of people to share music, food, dance and heritage.
On stage, the line-up leaned hard into the multicultural brief. The Rajasthan Heritage Brass Band and the Old Thumper Jazz Band provided the music, Circus Raj brought the spectacle, and Teabreak turned a hand-painted tuktuk into an audio and dance journey about tea. Nightjar Collective, African drummers and singers from West Africa and the UK, added to the bill, while the New Forest Heritage Centre set up an exhibition on the Indian army hospitals that stood in the New Forest during the First World War, specifically from November 1914 to March 1916.
What really filled the gaps between the big acts, though, was the sheer amount of things to actually do. There were free African drumming sessions and samba drumming workshops, plus a long list of arts tables: rangoli, madhubani painting, Chinese calligraphy, chess, clay moulding, Bangladeshi folk art, weaving and spinning. A children's fun fair kept the younger ones busy, and Chinese dragon performers roamed the site all weekend. Circus skills sessions ran from 12:30 to 17:30, and a Chinese tai chi session rounded things off on the Sunday.
A good chunk of the programme was built around workshops you could drop into across both days. There was Chinese drumming with Michael Ng, tabla drumming with Iqbal Pathan, Bollywood dance with Shreya Chugh and Kanisha Mehta, African drumming with African Activities, and samba drumming with Creative Beats. Between the workshops, the world food and street entertainment filled in the rest.
As for the hours, it was a full two days: Saturday ran from 12:00 to 22:00, and Sunday from 12:00 to 20:00. If you missed it, the best thing to do is keep an eye on Art Asia's announcements for next year, because it is the sort of event that is worth planning your summer around when it comes back round. For now, Hoglands Park is back to being a park, but the memory of a weekend that packed world-class performances, arts workshops and a fair amount of community spirit into two days lives on.
Published Date
28 July 2026
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