About NOW

NOW began as the Fringe to the Nottingham Festival at the former Midland Group arts centre. When the Midland Group closed, the organising of the fringe passed on to Nottingham City Council. The 1988 Fringe programme included a sculpture exhibition organised by the Castle Museum, Contemporary Archives. From 1989 the rechristened Contemporary Archives festival was launched as a “stand alone” from the Nottingham Festival, and held in the autumn. In its early years Contemporary Archives was Britain’s only annual festival including new performance. The fourth Festival in 1992 was branded as NOW ’92, and the name “NOW Festival” has been used ever since. In 2001 East Midlands Arts increased its investment as part of the Arts Council’s Next Stages programme, with the intention that NOW become “year round”. At this point we appointed a Director of NOW replacing the vacant role of NOW Festival co-ordinator, and since 2002 we’ve been working on what a year round NOW might be and building our capacity to deliver it. This resulted in 2004 in appointing the posts of Programmes and Learning & Audience managers, and our Administrator. We also built on our range of associates, particularly amongst creative businesses in Nottingham. This has all resulted in a more open, on-going programme of events, including our Exchanges programme which presents new emerging practices, and our Digital programme where you’ll find projects such as Jonny Norridge's Sim Sweatshop and Melissa Bliss' Shop Talk.

"A clamorous celebration of art and technology"
The Independent

"Nottingham's annual celebration of the cutting edge"
The Guardian

"Britain's most innovative arts festival"
The Telegraph

NOW Team

• Mark Dey, Director of NOW
• Faith Blakemore, NOW Administrator

Support

• Financially assisted by NottinghamCity Council.