York Proms 2026: a guide to the evening

The York Proms are back this Sunday, 26 July, at the Museum Gardens, opposite the Yorkshire Museum, for another evening of classical and popular music. It runs from 17:30 to 22:30, with warm-up entertainment from 18:00 and the concert itself starting at 19:30, before a low-noise fireworks finale behind the ruins of St Mary's Abbey brings things to a close around 22:30. The whole experience takes about four to five hours, so it is worth planning your evening around it.

Tickets must be booked in advance and are not sold at the gate, so do not leave it until you arrive. They start at £10, with children aged 5 to 15 needing a child ticket and under-fives free but still requiring a reserved ticket. You can have them as digital tickets on your phone, in your Apple Wallet, or print them off. Access is staggered: Fast Track and disability ticket holders go in through Marygate at 17:00, and everyone else through Museum Street from 17:30, so it is worth being seated by 19:00 before the music properly begins.

The programme is a real mix, with classical pieces, opera, film scores including John Williams, show tunes and the usual Proms favourites, and the orchestra has been enlarged this year. The soloists are a draw in their own right. Ashley Stilburn, a York-born West End leading man who graduated from the Guildford School of Acting in 2014 with a first-class degree and the award for Best Performance in a Musical, takes on the male theatre solos and duets and leads the finale. He has played the title role in The Phantom of the Opera as well as Feuilly and Enjolras in Les Misérables, Anthony Hope in Sweeney Todd and Walter Hartright in The Woman in White. Joining him is soprano Jennifer Coleman, who has been the York Proms female soloist twice before, in 2019 and 2023, and who since August 2025 has been a full-time chorus member of The Royal Ballet and Opera in Covent Garden.

Part of the appeal is the picnic. You are encouraged to bring your own food, alcohol, folding chairs, cool boxes, baskets and blankets, though gazebos, tables, large umbrellas and open flames are strictly off-limits. Local vendors sell hot and cold drinks, alcohol, cakes and refreshments on the night, and you can pre-order a picnic if you would rather not pack one yourself. There is a new charity partnership with York Against Cancer, an independent charity that supports, funds research and provides education for people affected by cancer across York and the wider region, and luxury picnic hampers can be pre-ordered for £25 and collected at the Proms, with a sausage roll from Bar Hashery and cream tea from the Dean Court Hotel among the local treats inside. Techscend, a York-based IT company, is the event sponsor.

The setting does half the work. The Museum Gardens cover about ten acres of the former grounds of St Mary's Abbey and were laid out in the 1830s in a gardenesque style by Sir John Murray Naysmith, with the Yorkshire Museum, one of the country's earliest purpose-built museums, completed in 1830. The gardens hold around 4,500 plants and trees, the remains of the Roman fort of Eboracum and one of only twelve Saluting Stations in the UK, which hosts 21-gun salutes on royal occasions. It is a fitting backdrop for an evening that blends a bit of local talent with a proper night out.