Bristol is celebrating a lot of anniversaries next year. From special events marking milestone birthdays, to some of Bristol’s most iconic venues celebrating decades in the city, there’s set to be a lot of nostalgia in the air.
Bristol’s interactive science centre We the Curious is celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2025. It comes after the venue only reopened this summer following a fire which saw it close back in April 2022 and, though there hasn’t been an official announcement of what we can expect from the 25th birthday celebrations, there will likely be a multitude of events at the science centre and even beyond.
And, while details are yet to be announced, it is also expected that events will take place in and around the Old City in November 2025 to mark the 85-year commemoration of the Bristol Blitz.
Neighbouring city Bath (which is a 12-minute train ride from Bristol) will be one of the cities celebrating Austen 250 – the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth – in 2025, and with the much-loved TV adaptation of Austen’s Sanditon being part-filmed in and around Bristol, fans of the author are sure to visit the filming locations to mark this significant anniversary year.
Bristol’s Arnolfini – a centre for international contemporary arts – is celebrating its 50th anniversary in its building on Bristol’s Harbourside in 2025, and nearby Bristol Aquarium is also celebrating an important 15-year anniversary in 2025, with events to be announced soon.
Meanwhile, in February 2025, silent and visual comedy event Slapstick Festival is marking its 20th anniversary with events featuring Harry Enfield, many other top-flight celebrity guests, as well as more than 30 events which will take place at venues across Bristol, saluting favourite film and TV and celebrating a new strand for the festival – comedy horror.
There will be live music to accompany the festival’s traditional package of rare, rediscovered and/or re-issued silent comedies, including films from the 1920s featuring Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Laurel & Hardy, Beatrice Lillie, Marie Provost and Norma Talmadge among others. You can read more about the line-up here.
What’s more, 2025 also sees two significant anniversaries for screen festivals in Bristol. Encounters Film Festival (September 24-28, 2025) celebrates 30 years of ‘championing fresh and exciting new creators in filmmaking as the UK’s leading short film, animation and virtual reality festival’; and Cinema Rediscovered (July 23-27, 2025) marks its 10-year anniversary of the festival dedicated to rediscovery and revival of great films.
And if that’s not enough, Bristol cult TV series, Skins, is 18 next year too. Are you feeling old yet?