{"id":301283,"date":"2026-02-16T18:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T18:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/301283\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T18:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T18:58:08","slug":"harry-styles-to-curate-meltdown-festival-at-londons-southbank-centre-and-play-an-intimate-gig-harry-styles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/301283\/","title":{"rendered":"Harry Styles to curate Meltdown festival at London\u2019s Southbank Centre \u2013 and play an intimate gig | Harry Styles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Harry Styles is to curate the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/music\/meltdown-festival\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Meltdown festival<\/a> at London\u2019s Southbank Centre, coinciding with the 75th anniversary of the venue.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The 32-year-old pop star follows Little Simz as curator of the 2025 event, and previous editions led by artists including Grace Jones, Nile Rodgers and Robert Smith of the Cure.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">In a statement, Styles said: \u201cI\u2019m deeply honoured to curate the Meltdown festival, especially for the Southbank Centre\u2019s 75th anniversary year. My goal as the curator is to share the music and art that I love, and to celebrate the rich history of the venue.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cWe both share a passionate belief that music is a vital part of life. It brings us together, and the Southbank Centre has been at the heart of it, providing easy access to great music for the past 75 years. I\u2019m incredibly grateful to Southbank for having me \u2013 it\u2019s really exciting for me to have this opportunity in such an iconic venue.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">No performers have yet been announced for the 31st edition of the festival, spanning 11-21 June, other than what will be a rare intimate show by Styles himself. The recently announced tour for Styles\u2019s upcoming album, Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally will make a record-breaking 12 stops at Wembley, each with a capacity of around 90,000 fans; the Southbank Centre\u2019s main auditorium seats 2,700.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">A press release for the event states that Styles\u2019s curatorship \u201cwill draw on his broad influences \u2013 from pop, soul, electronic and rock to underground scenes and emerging young British talent\u201d. Styles\u2019s recent comeback single, Aperture, channelled the softer end of dance music and was inspired, he said, by his experience of seeing LCD Soundsystem live for the first time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The schedule will also include a public programme of \u201cinteractive, participatory and free events, designed to engage young people across the UK and reflect ways younger audiences increasingly experience culture\u201d, according to a release.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Southbank Centre artistic director Mark Ball said that they were \u201cthrilled and excited that Harry Styles\u2019s Meltdown sits at the heart of a 75th anniversary year that champions young people, their curiosity and creative freedom\u201d. He added that the star\u2019s plans feel \u201clike a natural expression of what the Southbank Centre exists to do, and we are delighted to become his creative playground in our anniversary year\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">After the end of his former band One Direction in 2016, Styles released his self-titled debut solo album in 2017. A second, Fine Line, arrived in 2019. Of all the former One Direction members, Styles has received the most critical acclaim \u2013 as well as commercial \u2013 and earned praise for the breadth of his inspirations. Nevertheless, he is the most pop-leaning act ever to curate Meltdown, whose curators have tended to come from the alternative and underground worlds rather than TV talent shows.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Styles\u2019s own tour commences in Amsterdam on 16 May, after a one-off performance at Manchester\u2019s Co-op Live arena, in which he is an investor. The full lineup and ticket sale announcement for Meltdown will be announced in the spring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Harry Styles is to curate the Meltdown festival at London\u2019s Southbank Centre, coinciding with the 75th anniversary of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,278],"class_list":{"0":"post-301283","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}