‘A mini Asian Glastonbury’: Bradford City Mela aims to revive a much-loved tradition
On 1-2 August, the event will host a programme of live music, family entertainment and food, celebrating the diversity of local culture
Danyul Khan hopes Bradford City Mela will feel like “a little, mini Asian Glastonbury” — a weekend of music, food and community in the heart of the city.
On 1 and 2 August, the City Park and Centenary Square will host a programme of live music and family entertainment alongside food vendors, dessert stalls and traders, largely inspired by South Asian culture. The event draws on the Sanskrit word “mela”, which means “to meet”, and Khan, director of community events company Royale Festivals, hopes people from all across the city will join the event.
“For me, a mela is about people meeting each other,” Khan says. “It comes from South Asian culture, but it shouldn’t feel closed off. I want people from every part of Bradford to come, enjoy the food, hear the music, bring their families and feel like this is something for them too.”
Across the weekend, the main stage will bring together a lineup spanning Punjabi, pop and R&B sounds, including Pakistan-born, Netherlands-raised artist F1rstman, British-Bangladeshi singer and producer Mumzy Stranger, British-Asian singer-songwriter Saloni, UK bhangra act Sahara and D8, whose catalogue includes the single “Bradford (My Charva)”.
This is the festival’s debut in its current form, but the tradition it draws on is not new. The city held its first mela in 1988, widely regarded as the first large-scale South Asian event of its kind in Britain. Created by Bradford Council, Bradford Festival and Asian arts organisation Oriental Arts, it began as a one-day cultural event, but grew from 10,000 visitors to around 50,000 in 1989, becoming a weekend-long programme that attracted local and international artists. It went on to become one of the most visible expressions of Bradford’s South Asian public culture, helping set the pattern for similar festivals across the country.
That tradition has been shaped by the city’s long-established South Asian communities, including its Pakistani, Bangladeshi and wider Muslim populations. The former mela ran until 2015, having faced years of financial setbacks and some event cancellations.
For local resident Khaisal Alam, 54, who has lived in Bradford for nearly 40 years, the new mela adds an important date to Bradford’s summer cultural calendar. He remembers earlier melas as a celebration of the city’s diversity, enjoyed by local families as well as visitors from further afield. “It felt like one of those days when the whole city came out,” Alam says. “You had families, food, music and people from different backgrounds all in the same place. That’s what Bradford does well.”
Khan sees the festival as part of Bradford’s next chapter after its year as UK City of Culture, the national programme that brought a year of arts, heritage and cultural activity to the region in 2025. “It felt like the right time to bring something special to West Yorkshire,” he says. The aim, he adds, now is to create “a new, major mela experience” in a city that has helped bring South Asian culture on to a national stage.
The mela is intended to reflect the cultural breadth of Bradford itself. Khan says it will include Pakistani, Bengali and Punjabi influences, alongside Afro-Caribbean food, Irish dance workshops and local talent from across the city. Dance United Agency, a Northern Ireland-based organisation representing performers across styles including Bollywood, hip-hop, jazz, contemporary and tap, will also appear. The wider weekend will include children’s arts and crafts, henna and a magician.
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“We don’t want to just focus on celebrating and presenting just one side of Bradford,” he says. “It’s so good that we can bring communities from different faiths, different organisations and different cultures together.”
He hopes that sense of community will have a practical effect, with the mela supporting local businesses and students, and creating a platform for emerging artists who might otherwise struggle to find a way into large-scale events. “We’re not there coming and putting on an event and then going again,” he says. “We really want the community to benefit from the weekend and put money, attention and opportunity back into the area.”
The aim, he adds, is to build something that lasts, laying the foundation for an annual event for years to come.
“It’s just people embracing community and having fun,” he says. “It’s all about sharing our time and space with each other.”
Bradford City Mela runs 1-2 August.
