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APRIL 2026
TOP 4
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Your guide to the month ahead.
Check out our weekly event recommendations every Monday.
01
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Sheffield Folk Sessions Festival
Running from 3rd -5th April, the Sheffield Folk Sessions Festival spreads across Kelham Island with a free, drop-in programme built around pub sessions rather than a fixed stage line-up. Instead of scheduled headline acts, the weekend is made up of rolling sessions, workshops and informal performances that shift throughout the day depending on who’s playing and where.
Key venues include The Dog and Partridge and The Gardeners Rest, alongside others such as Kelham Island Tavern, Shakespeare’s, The Harlequin and The Three Tuns.
Across these spaces you’ll find a mix of sessions - from “welcome tunes” and singarounds to themed slots like English tunes, fiddle sessions and slower acoustic sets - often running simultaneously so you can wander between them.
The “line-up” is fluid, with named session leaders guiding some events but much of the music coming from whoever turns up with an instrument. It’s this mix of structure and spontaneity that defines the weekend, making it easy to dip in for an hour or stay all day, and giving it a distinctly local, communal feel that’s very different from a traditional festival setup.
Check out the website here for full up to date information
02
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Resistanz Festival @ Corporation
Running from 3rd - 5th April, Resistanz Festival returns to Corporation Sheffield and Trafalgar Warehouse for a full weekend of industrial, EBM and synth-driven electronic music.
The 2026 programme features a strong international line-up, with acts such as Rotersand, Solar Fake, Lebrock and Phosgore leading the bill, alongside artists including Amelia Arsenic, MOAAN EXIS, Red Cell, Denuit and Strange Futures. There’s also space for newer and more underground names like Arch Femmesis, Ghost Cop and Karkasaurus, plus a packed schedule of DJs running across multiple rooms each night.
The structure is dense rather than sprawling, with live sets and DJ performances overlapping so you’re constantly moving between spaces. It’s very much a scene-focused festival, drawing a dedicated crowd into a dark, high-energy club environment that runs late into the night, with merch, visuals and a strong alternative aesthetic tying the whole weekend together.
03
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Sheffield Snooker
The World Snooker Championship returns to Sheffield from 18 April to early May, once again centred on the Crucible Theatre, where it has been held every year since 1977. Widely seen as the sport’s biggest and most atmospheric event, the tournament brings together the world’s top 32 players in a knockout format that builds across two weeks, from shorter early rounds to the long, multi-session final. Qualifying takes place earlier in the month at the English Institute of Sport, while the main event draws fans into the city centre, with Tudor Square becoming a focal point for crowds, media and pre-match build-up.
This year also comes with major news about the tournament’s future, with a new agreement confirming that the championship will remain in Sheffield at the Crucible until at least 2045, securing its long-term home in the city and an injection of investment to help refurbish the venue.
04
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Sheffield Indie Book Festival
The Sheffield Indie Book Festival takes place on 25th (fringe) and 26th April and marks the first edition of the festival, bringing together Sheffield’s independent bookshops for a new, city-wide celebration of books, poetry and small press publishing.
It begins on the Saturday evening at La Biblioteka with a Sheaf Poetry Festival event, where poets including Helen Mort, Suzannah Evans and Molly Naylor read in an intimate, informal setting.
On Sunday, the focus shifts to Neepsend, with The Mowbray and The Victoria hosting the main festival day. A programme of talks, readings and panels runs alongside a marketplace of independent bookshops and publishers, so you can move between events and browsing throughout the day. The line-up includes children’s authors like Bethan Woollvin and Steve Webb, alongside writers such as Luke Barley, Hazel Sheffield, Manya Wilkinson, Michelle Tea and Kavitha Rao.
There’s also a panel on witches and folklore with Anna Caig, Molly Aitken and Sally O’Reilly, plus a graphic novel reading room at The Victoria for a quieter space to sit with books.
With food, drink and a relaxed, drop-in feel, it comes across as a friendly first outing for the festival, focused on connecting readers, writers and independent presses.
For tickets and full programme details, click here