Queer Up Duck! 2026 Festival
Nottingham Central Library is incredibly proud to welcome back Queer Up Duck Fest 2026 with some exciting new events with us and across the city!
About Queer Up Duck!
A new festival celebrating the LGBTQ+ community of Nottingham. The inaugural festival took place from 21 October – 2 November 2024, Queer Up Duck! and was a city-wide festival featuring theatre, exhibitions, film, music, comedy, drag and more.
Taking place at venues across Nottingham including Nottingham Playhouse, Broadway, City Arts, Nottingham Central Library and more, the festival is bursting with brilliantly queer work for adults and families alike.
Our Mission
Partners:
The festival wouldn’t be possible without the generous support from our partners and friends, as well as The Spencer Trust and Nottingham City Council.
- Broadway
- City Arts
- FABRIC
- Gasleak Mountain
- Global Wordsmiths
- Gladrags
- Nonsuch Studios
- Nottingham Central Library
- Nottingham Comedy Festival
- Nottingham Queer Arts Collective
- Nottingham Playhouse
- Squires Performing Arts
Crazy Little Sing Called Pub x Queer Up, Duck!
Thursday 15 October | Doors 6.30pm, 7pm to 9pm
Nottingham Central Library | Tickets from £11.20 to 13.44
Get ready to sing a queer dancefloor anthem in harmony with total strangers- we turn YOU into a pop-up choir… at the LIBRARY!
This October, we head back to Nottingham Central Library to team up with Queer Up Duck to help celebrate our LGBTQ+ community in Nottingham.
You’re all welcome along to Nottingham’s funnest pop-up choir of strangers! Tonight, we sing a queer anthem together – so bring your friends, allies, lovers (and enemies!) and expect to sing an upbeat dancefloor classic. Chaotic singing, laughter, music-making, drinks and community- that’s what we do. Get ready to get your glam on and sing your heart out with a bunch of total strangers as we teach you a pop / rock queer anthem in big, beautiful harmonies, from scratch, making a pop-up choir out of whoever turns up!
What to Expect: A Massive, Celebratory Singalong
It’s the raw energy of a gig, combined with the warmth of tons of voices singing together. Led by our energetic host, Abi Moore and guitarist Ed Mayle, we give you lyrics on a big screen, and show you what notes to belt out, turning YOU into a pop-up choir with people you may never have met!
Can’t Sing? No Worries – Bring Whatever Voice You Have
Maybe you sing like an angel or a strangled cat, we don’t care- it’s all the fun of a group singing event without any of the pressure. We believe singing is for everyone, so there’s no sheet music, no auditions, no solos, and absolutely no experience required.
Show Your Friends What You’ve Done!
Want to surprise your besties / friends / family? We film and record the final performance, so you can see and hear how amazing you were – send it to your mates to show them what a singing superstar you’ve become, in just one night! Check out our crowd videos on Youtube to see how great we get you sounding!
A Totally Unique Experience
What you achieve by the end is nothing short of magic – we do the planning, so you can just turn up without knowing anything at all, and end up with a masterpiece of sonic beauty!
Heartwarming, wholesome, uplifting fun, full of connection, community and humanity, making something beautiful with a room full of friends and lovely strangers that will never be repeated – whoever comes along for the ride makes the final performance totally unique each time!
So, bring whatever voice you have (good or bad!), grab your favourite drink at the bar and get ready to sing your heart out!
NB- By purchasing a ticket to attend, you are giving your consent to be filmed and photographed for the final performance.
The Queer Story: An Evening of Queer Storytelling
Friday 23 October | Doors 6.30pm, 7pm to 9pm
Nottingham Central Library | Tickets: £6
What does it mean to write stories that place LGBTQ+ characters and themes at their heart? Join some of the Midland’s leading writers in an evening of readings and discussion on writing queer stories in the surroundings of Nottingham Central Library.
Writers Becki Jayne Crossley, Elizabeth Lovatt and Polis Loizou will be joined by host CJ De Barra to unpack what it means to write LGBTQ+ stories today. Sharing extracts from their novels, and talking about their experience as LGBTQ+ writers, this evening will be the perfect antidote to the dark evenings as the nights start to draw in.
Come and get cosy amongst the shelves of the library – bring your favourite LGBTQ+ novel to share with others by joining the discussion.
Becki Jayne Crossley
Becki has had a book in her hands since before she could actually read, and since mastering the art of holding a pencil they’ve been writing down stories. As a bisexual author, Becki is passionate about queer YA stories that portray the realities of coming out and discovering your sexuality – especially considering the lack of stories they had like this while growing up. When not writing, Becki can be found watching awful horror films, reviewing local theatre, spending too much money at theme parks, and playing computer games with questionable skill.
CJ De Barra
CJ (they/them) is a queer, non-binary, neurodivergent author and journalist. Their first book, Neuroqueer: A Neurodivergent Guide to Love, Sex and Everything in Between (Mercier Press), was published in 2023. They have been a journalist for 20 years and have written for many different publications, including GCN, BBC, Diva Magazine, Euronews, The Stylist, and The Independent. CJ founded the community-led, unfunded project – Notts Queer History Archive (NQHA), which preserves and documents LGBT+ history from Nottingham, covering 1770 to 2026. This includes 210 oral history interviews, 1240 donated items and 830+ newspaper articles on queer heritage. CJ has produced three history books (Five Leaves Publications), with the first covering 1960 to 1990, released in August 2025. The follow-up, covering 1990 to 2025, was published in February 2026, and the third will cover 1770 to 1965. The archive was awarded a Rainbow Heritage award in February 2025 for its contribution to the community in the East Midlands. The project was also mentioned in the House of Commons in 2024 by MP Nadia Whittome. DIVA magazine named CJ a queer role model in 2026.
Elizabeth Lovatt
Elizabeth is a writer of fiction and creative non-fiction, originally from Leicester and now living in London. Her first book Thank You For Calling the Lesbian Line was published by Dialogue Books in 2025 and was shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize 2026 and the 2026 Lambda Literary Awards.
The book, which is part social history, part memoir, reimagines the women who both called and volunteered for the Lesbian Line in the 1990s, whilst also tracing Elizabeth’s own journey from accidentally coming out to disastrous dates to finding her chosen family. It has been described as “a timely and vital exploration of how lesbian identity continues to remake and redefine itself in the 21st century” and “a heartfelt history of the gay community”.
In 2019 she was a writer-in-residence for Islington Pride and the ruckus! archive. In November 2020 she was accepted onto Penguin Books’ #WriteNow mentorship scheme and has an MA in Creative and Critical Writing from Birkbeck. Her dissertation was awarded the Lynne Segal BiGS Prize in Gender and Sexuality.
Polis Loizou
Polis Loizou is an award-winning Cypriot author, theatre-maker, performer and oral storyteller based in Nottingham. His debut novel, ‘Disbanded Kingdom’ (Cloud Lodge Books, 2018) was long-listed for the Polari First Book Prize. His next two books are set in Cyprus, including ‘A Good Year’ (Fairlight Moderns, 2022) – a historical novella inspired by local horror folklore.
His short stories have featured in Litro, the Stockholm Review of Literature and been long-listed for the Fish Short Story Prize.
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