Arts Hastings is a strategic cultural network bringing together organisations, practitioners, and partners to strengthen and promote culture across Hastings and St Leonards.
We support collaboration, champion events and venues, and represent the cultural sector at a strategic level to help culture thrive year-round.
Our priorities are reviewed regularly
in response to local needs.
Arts Hastings Membership broadly reflects the cultural fields of Arts Council England:
Arts Diversity / Arts Education/ Combined Arts / Community Arts / Creative Health / Dance / Film/photography / Literature / Museums & Galleries / Music / Theatre / Tourism / Venues / Visual Arts.
Together with National Portfolio Organisations, Local Authorities, and Arts Council England representatives reflect the diversity across Hastings’ communities.
Meetings are held Quarterly with Special Interest Groups leading on specific projects that will feed into the main group.
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If you have not had an invitation, but you are a philanthropist and interested in participating, please contact us at hello@artshastings.com to let us know. While we cannot guarantee a place, we will add you to the guest list and confirm your booking depending on interest and availability.
By booking to join the guest list for the Philanthropy Cultural Tour, your reservation is not automatically guaranteed. Our team will manually confirm your place based on interest, the number of spaces available, and whether or not you've received an invite.
What to expect:
An evening of an immersive journey through St Leonards and Hastings, created especially for philanthropists, funders, and non‑profit organisations who want to experience the creative pulse of our coastal towns firsthand.
This guided walk brings you into the studios, performance spaces, and community hubs that shape our local arts ecology — from grassroots makers to established cultural landmarks. Along the way, you’ll encounter live performances, micro‑exhibitions, and short showcases curated to highlight the talent, diversity, and social impact that Hastings and St Leonards champion.
Midway through the route, everyone is to gather for a shared meal (food is optional) featuring locally sourced dishes, offering time to connect, reflect, and build new relationships across the philanthropic and non‑profit communities.
The day concludes with an intimate talk by Inua Ellams — poet, playwright, performer, and one of the most beloved literary voices working today. His reflections on creativity, identity, and the power of storytelling invite guests to consider how arts and culture can shape place, belonging, and long‑term social change.
Please book for whether or not you would like supper at the Bunka, which is £50 per head + booking fee. If you don't opt in for supper, you are still welcome to attend the spoken word performance.
This event is aimed to target as many organisations and philanthropists we have capacity for tickets are limited to one per organisation, however partners are more than welcome. Please specify if you need a plus one for them when booking.
Arts Hastings CIC and Hastings Borough Council will press ahead with a locally-led Hastings Year of Culture 2028 - honouring the community energy generated by its Town of Culture bid and launching a lasting cultural strategy for the town.
Hastings has not been selected to progress in the UK Town of Culture 2028 competition. Rather than allow the momentum of the bid process to dissipate, Arts Hastings CIC and Hastings Borough Council have confirmed that they will move forward together to deliver a community-rooted, locally-led Hastings Year of Culture 2028 - on the town's own terms.
The decision reflects the scale of public engagement generated through the bid: more than 300 survey responses, 250 participants in in-person consultations, and 8,000 public comments gathered through the Plan for Neighbourhoods. That investment of community energy will not go to waste.
The vision, creative themes and partnership network developed for the bid remain fully intact. The three themes that emerged from consultation - Grassroots to Global, Creative Health and Landscape, and Radical Welcome - will shape a full programme of activity running through 2028, culminating in the publication of a ten-year cultural strategy for Hastings.
Adam Daly, Arts Hastings CIC, said, “Hastings does not wait for permission. An unsuccessful bid outcome does not diminish what this town has shown the world about its ambition, creativity and community spirit. We are moving forward - and we are doing this as Hastings, in the way that only Hastings can.”
Why this matters for Hastings
Hastings faces some of the most acute social challenges in the country: ranked in the bottom 10 nationally for social mobility, the highest unemployment rate in East Sussex, and 27.7% of children living in poverty. A sustained, community-rooted cultural programme is not a peripheral concern in this context - it is a deliberate and evidence-based intervention.
Delivering a successful locally-led Year of Culture in 2028 also creates the strongest possible foundation for future national competition bids and demonstrates to Arts Council England, the National Lottery and other funders that Hastings has the infrastructure, community mandate and creative ambition to be taken seriously as a place of culture.
Cllr Julia Hilton, Deputy Leader of Hastings Borough Council and lead councillor for shaping places, regeneration and community wealth building, added, “The council has believed in Hastings' cultural ambition from the start, and that commitment has not changed. Our investment continues. We are proud to stand behind a locally-led Year of Culture, and we will actively work with Arts Hastings and the wider amazing creative community in Hastings to deliver real, lasting benefit to residents - especially those in communities that have waited longest for opportunity.”