Belfast 2023

AVA Festival runs over Friday 2nd and Saturday 3rd of June at the Titanic Slipways in Belfast.

The site will open and the music will start at 1 pm on both days. The event will end at 11 pm on both nights.

Get down early (pre 4 PM) to avoid big queues at the entrance. There will be food and drink available all day and night while the site is open.

Strobe lighting will be used during artists’ performances at the festival. Due to the nature of this, prior notice will not be given before use.

If you’re arriving by coach, local train station, shuttle, or you are being dropped off at Titanic Slipways the route to the entry gates is approx 200m. Please note, the best time to arrive to avoid queues is before 4pm.

Should you require help with your bags, we’ll have a team of volunteers on hand to help between the car park and entry gates.

Once you have passed the entry gates, you will be immediately inside the festival site. This year our site is a hardstanding site and will be completely level throughout.

DRINKS

The Sunflower Public House – Iconic pub with beer garden surrounded by street art. Serving up local craft beers and wood-fired pizza.

Ulster Sports Club – A former dive bar given a new lease of life as a retro leftfield music venue.

Bootleggers – Inventive boozy cocktails and hearty american style street food.

Boundary Brewing – Weekend Tap-Room from Belfast’s foremost craft beer brand.

Bittles Bar – Every wall is covered with whiskey and portraits of Belfast’s prominent historical figures. Best Guinness in Belfast.

FOOD

Belfast Wood Fired Pizza Company – Handmade and authentic woodfired pizzas, using locally sourced ingredients on a thin crispy base.

Jumon – Asian Fusion restaurant featuring an entirely vegan menu and great cocktails.

St. George’s Market – Weekend market with fresh food from local vendors and handmade craft trinkets.

Orā – Out of this world tapas and wine.

Hadskis – An ever-changing menu of daily specials alongside some classic European dishes.

Cyprus Avenue – A neighbourhood brasserie in the heart of East Belfast.COFFEE

Established – Speciality single origin coffee. Scandanavian inspired minimalist decor.

General Merchant – Local neighbourhood eaterie, supplying fine coffee & Antipodean brunches.

ACTIVITIES

Titanic Belfast – Monument to Belfast’s maritime heritage on the site of the former Harland & Wolff shipyard where the RMS Titanic was built.

Black Taxi Tour – Tour of Belfast interface areas, peace walls and world-famous murals.

Ulster Museum and Palm House – Located in Belfast’s Botanic Gardens in the heart of the Queen’s Quarter. Featuring art, archeology, botany, fashion and more!

Belfast Music Bus Tour – A journey across Belfast revealing the music, artists and landscape that have brought character to the city.

Oh Yeah! Music Centre Museum – Located in a former whiskey warehouse showcasing memorabilia and storyboards from the great achievers of Northern Irish music.

Belfast Bike Tours – cycle through beautiful Belfast. Each tour with Belfast Bike Tours is unique and guests can experience the city how they like (discount will be offered).

You can purchase AVA merchandise on site or from our webstore year round:
AVA Merch

AVA Festival, is strictly over 18’s and ticketed. Please note that you must bring a valid ID, either passport or Driving License.

Alcohol will be served throughout the day and the night at AVA Festival. Strictly over 18’s. ID will be required. AVA does not authorise anyone to bring their own alcohol.

AVA is a cashless festival, all major debit cards, Apple & Google Pay are accepted.

If at any point you feel overwhelmed or that you need a safe space, head to the Welfare Tent where the team will be able to help you. We also have a welfare team onsite who you can find around the festival site (in yellow and green uniform). Their primary role is to ensure the well-being of all AVA attendees so if you see one and need some assistance, simply approach them as they’re there to help you.

AVA aims to be welcoming and accessible to all. We are
committed to making your visit as easy and enjoyable as possible.

All interior festival venues are fully wheelchair accessible. The festival showcase is at Titanic Slipways with the entire public area situated on a single level or with only very slight elevations. We will have an accessibility viewing platform and adequate accessibility WCs throughout the site.

Our accessibility liaison and volunteers will be on hand at each venue to support anyone with a disability at the festival should they need any assistance.

Please email info@avafestival.com to report missing items.

If found, these will be available for collection post-event between Tuesday and Thursday between 10am—12pm and 2pm—5pm at the Oh Yeah Music Centre.

AVA is on a journey to become a more sustainable, inclusive and environmentally friendly event where we reduce our negative impact on the world, both locally and globally, and cultivate a sense of community and belonging for everyone that passes through our gates year on year, where everyone feels that they belong to something special. It’s not an easy ride but it’s an exciting one. We are committed and we are in it for the long run.

AVA is committed to supporting the local community, championing home grown talent with an emphasis on diversity & inclusion and actively minimising our impact on the environment.

We’ve created three strands for this work: Sustainability, Community, and Inclusion. We’re finding our feet and working on measuring how we’re currently performing and thinking about how we can not only improve what we are doing now but be leaders in the field. Throughout this journey, we’re committed to publicly reporting our progress so that we can be held accountable, by you our audience.

What are we doing right now?

1. Building a measurement tool to look at how we’re doing right now and what we can improve this year.
2. Planning some visible and tangible changes to the festival that will immediately have a positive impact on the environment. 
3. Actively responding to your feedback that was submitted from our post-event survey in 2021.

We are working with Gig Buddies to enable people with learning disabilities and/or autism to enjoy all the great things going on in their community, especially live music. Gig Buddies is a project that pairs up people with and without learning disabilities (and/or autism) to be friends and to go to events together.

War Child is our charity partner this year for AVA and we’ll be actively raising money for them through mandatory hospitality ticket donations. War Child is the only specialist charity for children affected by conflict. For more than two decades, they’ve been ensuring a safe future for every child living through war. This is an incredibly important mission now more than ever.

Entry pre-3 PM tickets require you to enter the festival before the allocated time. Anyone who arrives later will be required to pay a top-up fee.

Hospitality Tickets include:

• Access via hospitality “fast track” lane
• Access to hospitality bar & hospitality seated area
  Access hospitality toilets
  This is a hospitality area, created for a relaxed environment. If the security or staff feel your behaviour is disruptive, you will be ejected from the hospitality area, and if your behaviour is more than disruptive you will be ejected from the Festival site.
• This area is for strictly over 23 years olds. You must have a valid ID and if you have purchased a ticket and you are under 23, you will only gain access to the festival (provided you are over 18).

Once you have purchased the first half of the deposit ticket, the option to make the second payment will appear on this page while logged into the RA account with which you purchased the initial deposit.

The deadline for the 2nd Instalment is 19th April at 23:59.

First payment: £30 + booking fee
Second payment: £80 + booking fee

Please note that if it is not paid by then your ticket will be void and the first payment is non-refundable. The RA resale queue will not be available for deposit tickets.

R
We are pleased to be able to offer residents tickets this year with a 20% discount.

Residents’ tickets are limited and are offered on a first-come-first-served basis. To claim your discounted tickets, please email a utility bill as proof of address to info@avafestival.com with ‘Resident Tickets’ as the subject line.

Tickets are limited to 2x per person.
The catchment area for resident tickets covers the docklands area only.