OUTBURST Queer Arts Festival is an annual multi-discipline festival, celebrating and showcasing LGBT creativity in Northern Ireland.
The not-for-profit festival was established in 2006 by an informal group of LGBT community activists, performers and writers, with the aim of providing a dedicated platform for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender performance, writing and storytelling through the arts. Our programme aims to celebrate and foster community creativity, as well as showcasing work from established and professional artistes and entertainers.
One of our primary aims is to develop working partnerships with existing arts and community organisations, so that the creative needs of the LGBT community can be explored and faciliated in an open, vibrant and innovative way. To date we have had festival partnerships with
Belfast Film Festival, QFT, Linen Hall Library, 4TalentNI, New Belfast Community Arts Initiative, Black Box, Queen’s University Belfast, Cara Friend, LASI, poetcasting.co.uk, Changing Attitude Ireland and Creative Media Partnerships.
OUTBURST programmes…
1. Work by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender artists and performers
2. Work with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender themes
3. Work of particular interest to LGBT people.
The OUTBURST festival welcomes audiences from both the LGBT and non-LGBT community.
Please feel free to leave comments on the OUTBURST website, we are a community festival and your input, ideas and thoughts are very important! We would be delighted if people would use the site to explore relevant issues and to continue discussion and idea sharing both during the festival and all year round 
Would you like to submit an event proposal for the next OUTBURST festival? OUTBURST aims to be as inclusive as possible, so we would love to hear from you if you are an artist, writer, performer or facilitator and would like to get involved. Please contact us early in 2010 with details of your proposal. We are always delighted to offer support to artists seeking independent funding for an OUTBURST specific event. We particularly welcome partnerships with existing Arts organisations and other groups.
