Harry Styles will curate the Meltdown music festival in London

Monday 16 February 2026 16:32
| Updated:

Monday 16 February 2026 16:37

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Harry Styles has a busy London summer ahead of him. After selling out a 12-night run of shows at Wembley Stadium, the musician has announced that he will be hosting an entire musical extravaganza in the capital.

Meltdown Festival takes place at the Southbank Center between June 11 – 21 and celebrates a diverse range of different musical artists, with a full line-up curated by the former One Direction star. More details about who is playing will be announced later in the spring.

Styles, who has spoken to The Times this month about his quiet life in Rome over the past few years in search of a quieter life, will draw on a “wide range of influences,” spanning pop, soul, electronic and rock music, a program of “underground scenes and emerging young British talent,” and he will also appear in concert. This programming is supposed to capture “the curator’s interests.”

“My goal as curator is to share the music and art I love, and celebrate the rich history of the place,” Styles said. “We both share the belief that music is an important part of life. Music brings us together and the Southbank Center has been at the heart of it, providing easy access to great music for the last 75 years.”

Inside the London music festival curated by Harry Styles

In addition to ticketed events, there will be a public program of “interactive, participatory and free” events. Mark Ball, Artistic Director of Southbank Centre, said: “Throughout our 75 year history, Southbank Center has existed to provide a platform for our greatest artists to take creative risks and present work that pushes contemporary culture in new and unexpected directions. Harry Styles’ Meltdown feels like a natural expression.”

The first Meltdown Festival took place in 1993. It is said to be the longest-running artist-curated music festival in the world. Previous curators include Little Simz, Chaka Khan, Grace Jones, David Byrne, Yoko Ono, Nile Rodgers, David Bowie and Patti Smith.

Styles’ new album Kiss All the Time: Disco, Sometimes was released on March 6. It follows his second solo LP Harry’s House which was a Grammy award-winning Album of the Year in 2023, Harry Styles in 2017 and Fine Line in 2019. He achieved success in 2010 on the reality TV show The X Factor as one fifth of the boy band One Direction, which released five albums between 2011 and 2015.