Manipulate Festival will return in 2028
Manipulate Arts has been delivering boundary‑pushing festivals for over 40 years, welcoming audiences from across Scotland, the wider UK and around the world. Following a shift in our festival structure, our next full international Manipulate Festival will return in February 2028.
Alongside our main festival, we are launching Undercurrents, a new annual event celebrating raw ideas, bold experiments and fresh, untested work. This new platform will debut in February 2027, offering a space where artists can take risks and audiences can meet new Scottish visual theatre, puppetry and animation at its most alive and curious.
About the Festival
Manipulate Festival is a biennial international celebration of excellence in animated film, puppetry and visual theatre, bringing the very best of international and Scottish work to adult audiences of over 3000 across Edinburgh and beyond. The typically programme features an eclectic range of boundary-pushing performances and screenings across many visual disciplines, creates a platform for creative exchange and discussion, and serves as a home for Scottish artists to experiment with and receive feedback on new ideas.
The Festival has gained recognition nationally and internationally for its innovative curation and unique blend of artforms, including animated film, circus, dance theatre, mime, object theatre, puppetry, physical theatre and visual theatre. The Festival offers an essential moment in the cultural calendar for audiences to gather and form communities of interest, for artists to network and exchange ideas, and for cross-cultural creative exchange between nations.
