FKA twigs will curate the 32nd Meltdown festival at London's Southbank Centre from June 10 to 20, 2027. Announced on October 20, the appointment gives the singer behind Eusexua a role in shaping an 11-day programme, as well as a headline performance of her own.
Source: Raph_PH via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0; FKA twigs at Primavera Sound on June 5, 2025. Archive photograph, cropped and resized; not Meltdown 2027.
The official festival page promises dozens of concerts and two weekends of free events and activities. The line-up and details of twigs' headline show will follow in spring. Her appointment is therefore not a full programme announcement, and the other performers should not yet be inferred from her collaborators or past tours.
A curator is more than the name at the top of a bill
Meltdown's defining feature is the artist choosing the programme. Its history of guest directors includes David Bowie, Patti Smith and Grace Jones. That makes this news different from a conventional festival line-up reveal: the announcement identifies the person guiding the event before revealing the bill she has assembled.
Southbank describes twigs' work across music, choreography, film and design, connecting the appointment to a catalogue that runs from LP1 through Magdalene and Eusexua. Those are useful clues to the breadth of the commission, but they are not a confirmed setlist or a promise that a particular album will be performed in full.
Three announcements to keep separate
For planning purposes, the curator, her own concert and the wider festival schedule are distinct pieces of information. Only the first and the overall dates are settled in this announcement. Unlike the announced sales schedule for Bon Jovi's 2027 BST Hyde Park return, Meltdown's headline-show details remain a later step.
NME also reports Southbank's separate Hometown programme, with locally curated grassroots events across the UK between December and March. It is not a six-city FKA twigs tour. Keeping that series separate avoids turning two strands of Southbank's programming into concert dates the artist has not announced.
