7 min readUpfest, Bristol's street art festival and the largest of its kind in Europe, returns to the city from 15 - 31 May 2026. We asked the festival's founder, Steve Hayles, to tell us about how the festival has developed over the years...
So many things collided in the creation of Upfest, it’s difficult to know where to begin. Fundamentally, it started with three like-minded individuals with a passion for the emergence of Urban Art, an art form more accessible than most, utilising the street as a canvas to impart messages and colour into our everyday, often grey lives.
Of course, the streets had already been awash with colour and marks left by ancestors from the early 80s, or graffiti writers as they like to be known as, as it’s these often nighttime bandits that we have to be thankful for with the creation of graffiti paints and paving the way for true expressionism in public.
Image - 'The Six Sisters' artwork for Upfest 2021, by Bex Glover, Lucas Antics, Zoe Power, Gemma Compton, Sophie Long and Ejits
So Upfest - The Urban Paint Festival, as it was originally known, kicked off in October 2008 at its original Bedminster venue, The Tobacco Factory. Earlier that year, I’d visited and been inspired by Banksy’s ‘Cans Festival’ in London, and not long after an event in a Southampton pub called Super Cans, hosted by the one and only Stickee. In parallel to this and getting extremely bored with my job in insurance, I was endeavouring to find volunteering opportunities in Bristol’s cultural scene; alas, this was easier said than done.
Fortunately, stars did align, meeting the two other like-minded individuals, redundancy form hitting my desk, blagging the owner of the Tobacco Factory and former Bristol City Mayor, George Ferguson, that we knew what we were doing, and being asked, ‘why don’t you just do something yourself’, in response to the lack of volunteering opportunities back then. On a wet and grey October afternoon, the first injection of colour, courtesy of Upfest and 40 artists, rained down on the Tobacco Factory, Bedminster, Bristol.
Image - Painting at the Tobacco Factory for Upfest 2011 - Credit Alistair Beckett
It quickly became apparent that there were more than just 40 street artists squirrelling away in their bedrooms, preparing stencils, paste-ups and concept artworks, and the return of Upfest 9 months later saw over 100 of them flock back to Bristol from across the UK, Europe and even the USA.
Until 2010, Upfest was decidedly lacking something, ‘the street’ and as Upfest returned for its third rendition, attracting 150 artists and a growing crowd of visitors, we pushed the creativity onto the street, painting our first dozen street pieces and expanding beyond the tobacco factory courtyard and nearby abandoned garage, which had become our home in 2009 due to torrential rain.
The next few years were a bit of a blur; the number of artists grew from 40, and we were soon hitting 250 artists. We just kept saying yes to anyone who wanted to come and paint, but it started to get busy, very busy actually…
Image - Louis Masai painting at Upfest 2016
As Upfest continued to spread geographically, stretching further and further along North Street, so did the artists and visitors.
By 2018, Upfest was hosting 400 artists representing over 60 countries, and we were seeing visitors attend from across the globe.
Image - Live painting at UpFest 2018
And then, like the rest of the world, everything stopped.
COVID hit, and for the first time since that rainy day back in 2008, Upfest couldn’t happen in the way we all knew and loved. No crowds, no packed streets, no artists lined up against walls bringing the place to life over a single weekend. It was a strange one.
But if there’s one thing street artists are good at, it’s adapting. We couldn’t run a festival, but we could still paint. So the focus shifted - smaller projects, more considered murals and finding ways to support artists and keep the connection between art and the public alive, even if people were experiencing it on their daily walks rather than in big crowds.
We also experimented a bit. Virtual Upfest came to life, giving artists a platform when physical walls weren’t an option and keeping that sense of community ticking over… even if it was through screens rather than spray cans.
And then came 75 in 75 - a project to paint 75 murals in 75 days… which, as it turns out, was slightly ambitious. In reality, it ended up closer to 100 murals in 100 days, mainly because more and more artists wanted to get involved, and as has often been the case with Upfest, we found it pretty hard to say no.
Image - Insane4 mural for Upfest 2021
It also gave us a bit of time to think. When things started up again, it didn’t feel right to just go back to how it was. Upfest had grown so much over the years that it needed a bit more space to breathe, so we made the call to go biannual. Less frequent, but more considered. More time to plan, more time to work with artists and more time to make sure what we were creating had a lasting impact.
Then came 2022, and probably one of the biggest shifts we’d taken on - expanding into Greville Smyth Park. It was a bit of a leap into the unknown, but also a chance to open things up in a completely different way. More space, new audiences and a different kind of energy alongside what had been built at the Tobacco Factory over the years.
Image - Upfest 2022 in Greville Smith Park
And as ever, people showed up. From there, the idea of what Upfest could be kept evolving. By 2024, we had moved beyond the idea of a single weekend altogether, expanding into a two-week cultural programme. Not just murals, but talks, workshops, live art, music, paint jams, something that reflects the wider culture around urban art, not just the finished pieces.
Because it was never just about paint - it’s about the people and the community. That includes our charity partner Nacoa, which we’ve been proud to support since the very beginning. Eighteen years on, that relationship is still a massive part of what Upfest stands for - making sure that what we do has a positive impact beyond the walls.
And then there are the volunteers, and we’ve had hundreds of them over the years - probably thousands if you add it all up. Giving their time, their energy and occasionally their sanity to help make this thing happen. From helping artists and managing crowds to just keeping everything ticking along, Upfest simply wouldn’t exist without them.
Image - Ivan Tortajada mural for Upfest Presents 2024
Which brings us to 2026…
Eighteen years since that first wet weekend at the Tobacco Factory, and somehow we’ve grown into Europe’s largest street art festival. Still evolving, still growing, still finding new ways to stay true to what it started as - putting art into the streets, for everyone.
What happens next? 150 new murals across Bedminster and three weekends at the Tobacco Factory from Friday 15 May until Sunday 31 May.
See you there.
Big love, Steve
upfest.co.uk
Image - Cheo painting at Upfest 2017
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