What’s on: ThriddingsFest – celebrating Yorkshire in words and music
ThriddingsFest – a modern dialect word literally meaning a celebration of Yorkshire’s ancient Three Ridings – is a week-long, community-led celebration of Yorkshire in words, music, song and dance.
This year events will take place in the first week in August in the West Riding of Yorkshire, with poets, musicians and Yorkshire dialect speakers putting on events in their local community to which everyone is invited to listen but also take part. The events will include Yorkshire Day – Saturday August 1st – this year being celebrated in the town of Goole and in Bradford by the first-ever Yorkshire Prom a special concert of Yorkshire popular orchestral and choral music in St George’s Hall The first ever Yorkshire Proms – The Yorkshire Society.
ThriddingsFest 2026 events will include:
August 1st Kallin Hoil Caffeh – Chatty Café – an afternoon gathering in Paddock, Huddersfield organised by young people to encourage everyone to listen to and try out their local Yorkshire dialect in a friendly and relaxed atmosphere
August 2nd – Buck Inn Dales Music Session with the Dales Music Collective – an afternoon of traditional songs, dialect poems and music of the Yorkshire Dales in a country inn – Buckden, North Yorkshire
August 3rd – The Wharfedale Poets celebrate Yorkshire – Burley in Wharfedale – an evening with open mike session for all local poets attending to take part
August 4th – The Batley Poets also celebrating Yorkshire – Batley Library, also with open mike session
August 6th – Topic Club Yorkshire Neet – music and songs from all over Yorkshire at the Castle Inn, Gratton Street Bradford. All welcome
August 7th Young Yorkshire Folk Open Night at Karmand Centre Bradford – music, dance, songs – all with a Yorkshire theme. Everyone welcome
August 9th – Yorkshire Poets Talking Bollocks – an afternoon of subversive verse in The Chemic Tavern from some of Leeds’s leading performance poets – again open mike contributions warmly welcome.
Vicki Warner, Co-ordinator of ThriddingsFest on behalf of the Yorkshire Society comments: “ThriddingsFest is all about encouraging everyone, from whatever background and faith, to celebrate our shared Yorkshire heritage, identity and culture, to make new friends and join in the fun. We hope in future years to encourage many more community events, including in Yorkshire’s East and North Ridings”.
Phil Bell, CEO of the Yorkshire Society added “The Yorkshire Society is pleased to support what we hope will become an annual celebration – a sort of Yorkshire Eisteddfod – of music, poetry, songs and dance celebrating all that is good and great about Yorkshire”
For full details of all the ThriddingsFest events see: https://theyorkshiresociety.org/2026-thriddingsfest-line-up-announced/