A collection of festivals, including Brighton Festival, Brighton Fringe, Artist's Open Houses and HOUSE, will be back in May 2015, to transform the south coast city into a melting pot of theatrical, musical and artistic wizardry. Festivals in Brighton is growing year on year, and from 1st May 2015 the city will once again be sizzling with cutting edge music, dance, visual art, free events, outdoor performance, spoken word, theatre and film.

Brighton Festival is one of Europe's leading arts festivals and well known for its ambitious commissioning and producing. This year's guest director is innovative author Ali Smith, purveyor of numerous acclaimed novels, short story and essay collections, and one of the most distinctive voices on the literary scene today. Winner of the Goldsmiths Prize 2014 for bold original fiction for her latest novel How to be Both, which was nominated for the Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Costa Book Award, Smith's fearlessly experimental and idiosyncratic writing has placed her at the forefront of contemporary British fiction.

Brighton Fringe runs from 1 May – 31 May 2015 and is the largest mixed arts festival in England and one of the largest in the world. A programme of cabaret, comedy, dance, theatre, music and more, ensures the iconic seaside city is set alight with events for everyone, whatever their age and persuasion. 

In 2014 Brighton Fringe notched up 740 events (214 of them free) and 3,564 performances at 183 venues ranging from theatres and churches to makeshift performance spaces including police cells, public toilets and a Victorian-style bathing machine, and 2015's open access festival promises to be yet even bigger and better. 

For the full programme and to book tickets (from late February) visit brightonfringe.org

In 2015 The Artists Open Houses festival is set to grow in quality, quantity and innovation with over 200 houses and studio spaces across the city opening their doors to exhibit the work of 1200 artists and makers.  One of the more maverick highlights is Brighton-based painter and art tutor Jack Spicer's drawing event which will see models dressed as circus characters and posed in different rooms of a house for visitors to draw.  This year's AOH brochure cover artist will be the original Dr Who graphics designer, Bernard Lodge.

Curated contemporary visual arts event HOUSE is back again in 2015 witha series of new site-specific works. Working with Invited Artist, Nathan Coley, Turner Prize nominee 2007, and selected new projects by artists based in the South East region, House will continue to explore the threshold between private and public space.

www.visitbrighton.com/culture/festivals 

Press information from Oliver Relations: phoebe@oliverrelations.co.uk or phone 01273 818112

Notes to editors:

About Festivals in Brighton – Brighton Festival, Brighton Fringe, Artists Open Houses and HOUSE, the four festivals that take place in the city of Brighton & Hove every May and are supported by VisitBrighton.