Community Creativity Takes Over Moulsecoomb Place for Brighton FestivalWeekend

Moulsecoomb Place was full of creativity, colour and community spirit across the weekend of 16–17 May as Our Place Community Fun Day and Brighton Festival’s Without Walls programme brought hundreds of people together in East Brighton.

East Brighton Trust supported and enabled parts of the weekend by providing free use of the lawns, indoor and outdoor spaces at Moulsecoomb Place, helping create an open and welcoming setting for free arts, performance and family activities in the heart of the community – something that we are keen to see happening more often and not only during the Festival.

Saturday’s Our Place Community Fun Day transformed the grounds into a relaxed community celebration, with puppet and mask-making workshops, games, bubbles, costume activities, badge making, outdoor performances and free table tennis sessions delivered with Brighton Table Tennis Club. Families brought picnics onto the lawns while local people of all ages took part throughout the afternoon.

A major highlight of the day was The Beast of Bevendean and the Moulsecoomb Mice, a large-scale community puppet performance commissioned by Brighton Festival and created by puppeteer Darren East alongside local residents, schools and community groups. The project saw people from Moulsecoomb and Bevendean work together to design masks, puppets and characters inspired by local stories and imagination, culminating in a joyful public performance during the event.

The weekend then continued with Brighton Festival’s Without Walls programme, a city-wide series of free outdoor performances featuring dance, theatre, performance art and physical comedy. Brighton Festival’s 2026 programme includes two Weekends Without Walls across the city, celebrating accessible outdoor arts and community participation.

Performances across the weekend included ElevateHer, Tender Exchange, Garbh and The Torch, with Moulsecoomb Place becoming one of the Festival’s outdoor venues. Tender Exchange, by Radical Ritual, invited audiences into a shared listening experience centred around connection, trust and community.

The events reflected the growing role Moulsecoomb Place is playing as a creative and community-focused space for East Brighton, bringing together local organisations, artists, residents and visitors through free and accessible activity.

East Brighton Trust would like to thank Brighton Festival, Brighton Dome, the artists, volunteers, partners and local residents who helped make the weekend such a success.

Pictures by Emily Dryden