Artwave 2026: 176 Free Shows, 5 to 20 September

Artwave opens on Saturday 5 September and runs to Sunday 20 September. Every one of its 176 exhibitions is free to visit.

This is the festival’s 33rd year. The official 2026 brochure puts artists and makers in their own studios and workshops, and in private homes, churches, farms, gardens and disused mills across the whole district.

Where the venues are

The 176 venues are split across five trails. Counted from the brochure’s own venue numbering, the split is:

The rural trail is the widest spread, taking in Ditchling, Streat, Plumpton, East Chiltington, Offham, Hamsey, Barcombe, Fletching, Isfield, Upper Stoneham, Ringmer, Glynde, Laughton, East Hoathly, Kingston, Iford, Northease, Rodmell, Piddinghoe, Firle, Ripe, Upper Dicker, Alciston, Berwick, Alfriston, Litlington and East Dean.

Three things that are new this year

• Eighty lightboxes go up around the High Street. Stories Seen Through a Glass Plate: Working Lewes runs from 10 September to 4 October, longer than the festival itself. It shows images from the Edward Reeves Archive of Lewes people at work over more than a century. New for 2026 there is a children’s trail, and maps and leaflets are available at participating venues.
• A ferry link to Dieppe. Artwave says it is spotlighting the festival on the Newhaven to Dieppe crossing, pointing travellers at the venues within a short walk, bus or train ride of the terminal. The brochure lists 21 galleries in Dieppe and its surrounding villages.
• A food festival alongside it. The brochure flags a new Foodwave festival for local food producers, restaurants, breweries and makers, with supper clubs, tastings and talks. No separate Foodwave dates or listings were published as of 26 August.

A few of the venues

Every venue is numbered in the brochure, which is the quickest way to find one on the maps.

• Venue 125, 204 1/2 at The Soap Factory, Phoenix Estate, North Street, Lewes, BN7 2PE. Contemporary and traditional art, alternative limbs and jewellery, interactive installations, music and freshly baked goods in one of the town’s oldest industrial buildings. Open 10:30 to 16:00 every day of the festival.
• Venue 98, One Hundred & Seventy Years in Focus, Edward Reeves Photography, 159 High Street, Lewes. Images from 170 years of the Reeves studio, with the daylight studio and castle views. Open 11:00 to 16:00 daily.
• Venue 170, A Community of Kindness, The Atrium, Marine Workshops, Railway Approach, Newhaven. Posters by school pupils from Seaford, Newhaven, Peacehaven and Telscombe, made for a Lewes District Council and Look Again public realm project.
• Venue 66, Arts at the Crypt Gallery, 23 Church Street, Seaford. Nine artists showing paintings, glasswork, jewellery, prints and fabrics. Open 10:00 to 16:00 daily.
• Venue 26, Glynde Social Club, where this year’s cover artist Kim De Paolis is showing alongside ten other alumni of the Turps East Sussex mentoring programme.

What it means for you

Check opening times before you set off. Venues set their own days and hours, and the festival’s own brochure tells visitors to confirm times with the venue in advance. Artwave posts late changes on Instagram and Facebook as @artwavefestival, and full addresses and opening times are on artwavefestival.org.

Trains should be running by opening day. The Haywards Heath to Lewes line has been shut since the derailment on 13 August, and Network Rail and Southern have confirmed it reopens on Tuesday 1 September, four days before the festival starts. We are tracking that on our Lewes roadworks and travel page.

If you would rather not drive, the brochure names the useful bus routes: Brighton and Hove services 28 and 29 for Lewes, and Compass services 127, 128 and 129. Compass 123 and 145 serve Newhaven, Piddinghoe, South Heighton and Denton.

Next year’s festival is already dated: 4 to 19 September 2027.

More things to do in the town, all year round, are on our things to do in Lewes page.