About

A festival of music, dance and theatre performance.

SparkFest is the realisation of an exciting and dynamic partnership between Bath Festival and Bath Spa University, promising a fresh look at how early career talent engages with Bath audiences and the region’s artistic and business community.

We celebrate the work of students, staff and alumni of the Bath School of Music and Performing Arts and profile our collaborations with industry professionals and partnering arts organisations.

SparkFest is programmed and produced by Bath Spa Productions.

Bath Spa Productions is the production house for the Bath School of Music and Performing Arts.

We produce and support a range of projects, events and initiatives that:

Profile the creativity and talent of students and staff on all courses in the School.
Facilitate the application of new skills and knowledge in an industry context.
Explore Knowledge Transfer partnerships with industry and research professionals as well as arts and business organisations.

SparkFest is the largest project in Bath Spa Productions’ season of work. It is held annually across the months of May and June, and occupies a range of locations across the cultural and heritage city of Bath, as well as offering a platform for digital performance work.

Our Story

SparkFest grew out of the need to produce a range of showcase events for original student work across the School of Music and Performing Arts at Bath Spa University.

Its roots come from a traditional Fringe model, with the first festival being part of Bath Fringe in 2015, but as yet was not known by the title SparkFest. Each year saw the festival grow in size through the explosion of creative work that came from the School and growing audience engagement, until in 2018 the festival was partnered by Bath Festival and SparkFest was launched.

Since then, SparkFest has continued to develop and grow its activity. In 2020 the Covid pandemic cancelled our scheduled live festival, however, all adversity is an opportunity, so we adapted and delivered a digital festival to continue to celebrate the talent and creativity of our School’s work. This digital festival is now a developing feature of SparkFest and 2021 saw the first festival to include both digital and live performances.