Northumbria University opens its doors for The Late Shows 2026

Northumbria University is set to throw open its doors to the public this May as part of The Late Shows, Newcastle and Gateshead's award-winning free after-hours culture crawl, with four events spanning music, history, design research and community memory.

Taking place across two Northumbria venues on Friday 8 and Saturday 9 May 2026, the events offer something for everyone: from hands-on musical exploration to a Tudor role-playing game, a feminist design research open studio, and a collaborative zine workshop celebrating lost urban spaces.

Friday 8 May – School of Design, Northumbria University

The School of Design's Design Feminisms Research Group opens its studio doors from 6pm to 10.30pm for an evening of research, reflection and conversation.

The group, which welcomes people of all genders with an interest in the relationship between feminism and design, will share work-in-progress from a wide range of projects, including research into women's recovery services, care practices, community-led AI, co-design methodologies and wool communities.

A second event will also take place from 6pm to 9pm, as poets and researchers Richard O'Brien and Adam Dixon invite visitors to help create MEMORY LANE: A Collaborative Zine About Lost Spaces.

Participants are encouraged to bring a story or a photograph of a closed, demolished or transformed space in Newcastle or Gateshead.

Contributions will be scanned and woven into a collaborative zine, with everyone who takes part receiving a copy.

Saturday 9 May – Student Central, City Campus

At Northumbria's Student Central, visitors can get hands-on with Music in Your Hands, a family-friendly exploration of musical instruments from around the world and across the centuries.

Open from 6pm to 10pm, the event invites people to discover how instruments work, make music using everything from seashells to blades of grass, and even invent their own. No musical experience is needed.

Also taking place that evening is A Night in Shakespeare's World, which offers a short, self-paced game informed by the research of Northumbria's Medieval and Early Modern Studies group.

Visitors choose a character from Shakespeare's theatrical world and collect elements to design their own Tudor play, guided by visual, musical and textual sources from the period, with a resident lutenist, poet and catch-singer on hand.

The experience takes around 20 minutes and promises to bring 400 years of music, political intrigue and international connection vividly to life.

All four events are free to attend and form part of The Late Shows' wider programme running across Newcastle and Gateshead on 8 and 9 May.

For more information and the full programme, visit thelateshows.org.uk.