London's Arts Festival
2012 - 2023
London's Arts Festival
2012 - 2023
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VAULT Festival was created by the Heritage Arts Company in 2012 as a unique kaleidoscope of entertainment: an underground platform for artists to showcase raw, exciting & boundary-pushing work in the labyrinthine tunnels beneath the heart of London.
Over 11 years, it hosted theatre, comedy, film, opera, cabaret, music and some really big parties. Delivered by a multitude of dedicated creative professionals led by Tim Wilson, Mat Burtcher & Andy George, it became a vibrant destination in the UK's live performance scene that showcased the work of 12,000 emerging artists to nearly half a million audience members, delivering 13,500 performances of 3,000 new shows across nine festivals.
After battling the upheaval following COVID since 2020, the final festival took place in 2023.
"London's Answer to the Edinburgh Fringe"
"Brazenly original - the loudest, proudest arts and culture environment"
"A highlight of the year for theatre and comedy... a huge amount of messy fun"
"London needs something to cheer itself up and the answer might very well be VAULT Festival"
"Full of joy... one of the linchpins of the theatrical year and a key event in London's cultural calendar"
"The place to see the stars of tomorrow before they take over the world"
"The champion of innovative and risk-taking performances"
"Intrinsic to the development of new work and new voices"
"A leading independent showcase of live performance and artistic talent"
"Vital for the artistic landscape"
"Put its artists at the forefront of its work by empowering a range of voices to explore issues of race, queerness, feminism, climate-change and more"
"When something as entertaining as VAULT Festival comes along, you should be there."
Inclusivity, freedom of expression and fun were at the heart of the festival. We wanted the creative industries to be more accessible, more courageous, and more joyful. The financial risks of trying to get a show on anywhere else were huge (and they still are). VAULT Festival aimed to help share those risks by programming a broad range of shows in one place. The goal was to remove as many barriers to entry as possible for artists of all backgrounds and give more people a shot. We couldn't remove them all - or even most of them - but we hoped that by empowering a more diverse range of voices to tell stories we could make a distinctive programme each year and help change our society's prevailing narratives.
In the first seven years we grew from a three-weekend, 24-event explosion of chaos to an established eight-week run with over 3,000 performances, making VAULT Festival the fastest-growing arts festival in the UK and the largest curated arts festival in the world. It proved there was a cultural appetite for new work and new voices.
We presented over a thousand world premieres, gave 850 artists their full professional debuts, and catapulted new shows across the globe from Brazil, to Ukraine, to India. Over 85% of the original work we staged found a future life and we were a launchpad for some of the biggest stars of the future with artists going on to work with the likes of Netflix, Amazon, and the BBC amongst many, many more.
The artists & shows were the whole point and we're proud to be associated with all the brilliant people who chose to perform under our leaky roof, from the 5-star smashes to the experiments that were only just starting to evolve. Our schedules were always full, and as such many shows worthy of a space didn't make it, though we grew year on year to try to accommodate more. We've preserved all our print programmes here.
By the end of the run, the shows were created by artists who were (by our best estimates and surveys) 56% Global Majority, 45% Working Class, 29% Disabled or Neurodiverse and 59% LGBTQIA+. We hope there are more diverse artists in the creative industries because of VAULT Festival.
Nearly half a million of you descended into our underground labyrinth of tunnels over the deep winter months, pouring into our bespoke venues in the search of bold and brilliant new work and the fantastic artists that were making it. You danced at epic late night parties, laughed your socks off cutting-edge new comedy; felt all the feels at tantalising new theatre, and, through our unique artist-centred model that dared to dream of a different future, you helped put hard-earned cash in artists' pockets along the way.
We give our heartfelt thanks to everyone who was a part of the VAULT Festival journey. Your support and belief kept us going.
Though our stages have gone dark, there are many more out there to enjoy and to support. We implore others to exceed what VAULT Festival achieved, to imagine a different future, and to always be creative, courageous and kind.
Make art, make trouble, make change - and have fun.
With love & gratitude,
Team VAULT