In 2026, Live Collision enters its fifteenth edition, and they are marking this milestone with a decisive evolution: the festival moves to a biennial model, anchored by the launch of Live Collision Salon. This is an ambitious step, designed to deepen the support they provide to artists and to extend the possibilities of Live Art in Ireland.

→ The Listening Room: Live

Presented by Live Collision

Music / Listening Event

Date: 03 May 2026
Times: 2pm – 4pm
Followed by our Listening Party (4pm – 6pm)
Location: Flux
Tickets: €7

BOOK TICKETS

Drawing from traditions of deep listening — from the intimacy of Tokyo’s jazz kissas to the spatial sensitivity of contemporary listening rooms — this is an environment tuned for attention. A guest DJ anchors the session, joined by six invited selectors working across live art, music, and digital practices. Together, they shape an evolving sonic landscape: tracks placed with intention, transitions held open, textures allowed to resonate and unfold.

Listeners are invited to sit with duration, to attune to subtle shifts in tone, frequency, and feeling. This marks a move away from passive listening towards a shared, embodied experience — a temporary commons where sound becomes a medium for relation, reflection, and encounter.

Bed in and disconnect. This is a collective act of listening — a shared gift from Live Collision to its festival community.

The First Bad Man

Presented by Pan Pan

Theatre / Live Art

Dates: 01 – 03 May 2026
Times: 8pm on Friday 01 May
6pm (ISL) and 8:15pm on Saturday 02 May
7pm on Sunday 03 May
Location: Flux
Tickets: €26 and €22 concession
Each person booking tickets for the performance will receive a copy of the novel in the post.

BOOK TICKETS

A live performance based on a reading of THE FIRST BAD MAN, a novel by Miranda July. Kitty Blennerhasset, John Benno, Rose McVittie & Freya Golden have recently joined a book club. Their first book is The First Bad Man and every week for a year they keep coming back to it. After hugely successful runs in New York, Calgary, London and Melbourne, The First Bad Man returns to Dublin for a limited run as part of Live Collision Salon.

This performance is a telling of these book club members’ encounter with the characters of Miranda July’s novel, reviewed by The Observer as: ‘Heartbreakingly sad, thoughtful, disgusting and hilarious’.

Lady Marmalade

Presented by Sonia Hughes / Weeding Cane

Process based / collaborative art-work

Dates: 01 – 03 May 2026
Location: Flux
Tickets: This is a non-ticketed event
Participants have been invited by the artist through a callout across a national festival network

As part of her research and development Sonia Hughes is gathering a group of *women to explore their rage, grief and desire by forming a band and learning to play the same song over and over again. In response to this turbulent world it is an attempt to shift the terror and make way to the clearing.

There will be a theatre show eventually, but at this point we are gathering the people that can bring the magic.

Sonia is joined by collaborators Jo Fong and Nicki Dupuy.

*incl anyone who is nonbinary, trans & femme

Supported by Arts Council England, Transform Festival (Leeds), Battersea Arts Centre (London), Live Collision (Dublin)

Listening Party

Presented by Live Collision and ddr

Music / Listening Event

Date: 03 May 2026
Times: 4pm – 6pm
Location: Flux
Tickets: Free
Book: walk-up
*Event BYOB

Join us this May bank holiday Sunday for an afternoon of music, soft gathering, and a BYOB social. A space to settle in, stretch out, and spend a while.

‘Staying with it’ can feel like a luxury — taking time to listen, to ease into duration, to let something unfold gently. In the constant churn of content and accelerated attention, these slower, more reflective ways of being together can slip away.

Live Collision’s Listening Party is an invitation to hold onto that feeling a little longer — to slow attention, tune in, and spend time. Guest DJ Rhyzine anchors the session — a tour de force of the dance, and one of Dublin’s most exciting club voices, both behind the decks and as co-founder of the celebrated party HONEYPOT.