FKA twigs is taking over Meltdown—not just its headline slot.
She will curate the June 10–20, 2027 festival in London, while a separate Hometown Meltdown project heads to six grassroots venues.
FKA twigs will do more than headline a festival next summer: she will help decide what the audience sees. The singer, dancer and visual artist has been named curator of Meltdown 2027 at London’s Southbank Centre, with the festival scheduled for June 10–20.
The appointment gives her a different kind of platform from an ordinary tour stop. Meltdown places an artist’s taste at the centre of a programme of concerts and performances across the arts centre, allowing the curator’s influences and creative interests to shape the event.
A full programme and ticket on-sale details had not been announced in the reports reviewed for this edition. The confirmed news is the curator, the festival window and the promise of a headline performance—not a complete list of artists or a set of tickets already available to buy.
London is part of her brief
In her announcement statement, twigs traced her creative life through Croydon College, underground cabaret clubs, warehouse nights by the docks and major London stages. She described the city’s mix of artistic and cultural influences as central to what has shaped her.
That gives an outline of her curatorial intention without revealing the eventual bookings. Her stated aim is to reflect the diversity, freedom and creative energy she associates with London. Fans can reasonably expect those ideas to inform the festival; they cannot yet turn them into a confirmed guest list.
Twigs joins a succession of Meltdown curators whose names include David Bowie, Grace Jones, David Byrne, Yoko Ono, Chaka Khan, Little Simz and Harry Styles. The continuity is the artist-led format, not an expectation that each edition repeats the previous one’s musical approach.
A curator is not just the closing act
Headlining and curating are related but separate jobs. One concerns the artist’s own appearance; the other concerns the wider programme being assembled around the festival. That distinction makes this announcement interesting beyond the prospect of another twigs performance.
Her work moves across music, movement and visual presentation, and the festival takes place at a multi-arts centre rather than a single conventional concert venue. Those are relevant ingredients, but they do not establish what staging, collaborations or special guests will eventually be announced.
The Southbank Centre confirmed the appointment as part of its 2027 season launch. Its broader programme also includes artists and events outside Meltdown. Those season highlights should not automatically be presented as bookings personally selected by twigs for her festival.
Meltdown is also heading into local venues
Alongside the London announcement comes Hometown Meltdown, a separate nationwide project created with Music Venue Trust. It will bring artist-curated two-day events to grassroots venues in six British towns and cities between December 2026 and March 2027.
The six local curators are Kelly Lee Owens in Bethesda, Stewart Lee in Falmouth, Kathryn Joseph in Dundee, Jamie Cullum in Southend, Pauline Black in Nottingham and Rhoda Dakar in Sheffield, as listed by the Southbank Centre.
These are not six stops on a newly announced FKA twigs tour. Each local programme has its own curator. The connection is the artist-led Meltdown idea and a partnership designed to draw attention to grassroots music venues beyond London.
Music Venue Trust’s Beverley Whitrick welcomed the project as recognition of venues that can be overlooked in conversations about cultural infrastructure. That is the organisation’s rationale for the partnership, not a claim that the project alone solves the financial pressures facing small music spaces.
What fans can watch—and what is still to come
The gallery includes the announcement portrait by Jordan Hemingway, a photograph of twigs at the NME Awards in 2020 and NME’s video of her Cellophane performance at that ceremony. The performance is archival material linked by the source report, not footage from a festival that has not happened yet.
For planning a visit, the useful information today is the June 10–20 festival window. Specific performance dates, the complete line-up and ticket arrangements need the next official announcement. A familiar name on an unrelated season listing is not a substitute for that confirmation.
The appeal of the appointment is the shift in perspective: audiences will be invited into a programme shaped by what twigs wants to share, not only a set of songs she wants to perform. The line-up will show how that invitation takes form.
