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The Perfect Pitch for Norwich:

Wild Paths Festival, Norwich 2025

Tuesday, 14th October - Sunday, 19th October 2025


Norwich has many diverse music venues, many potential music venues and with St Andrew’s Hall being totally refurbished, more music venues to come.  Each has unique qualities, from the intimacy of The Bicycle Shop cellar bar, to the cool vibe of Gonzo's Two Room, to the best dive bar in the country, Voodoo Daddy’s Showroom, to the enormous cathedral, Norwich has something for every genre of music.  To underline this, after soulless arenas and cavernous halls, the appeal and perfect acoustics of the Norwich Arts Centre often moves international touring acts, such as Alan Sparhawk of Low, or the late Martin Phillips of The Chills, to speak in awe of the venue, but there are other old churches that Wild Paths 2025 has teamed up with, such as St Peter Parmentergate, the wondrous Octagon Chapel  and St Laurence.  


Brown Horse will be dropping by Wild Paths 2025
 
In celebration of the city’s musical quality and diversity, Wild Paths Festival Director, Ben Street and his enthusiastic team have put together an exciting and ambitious festival to draw just some of this together, using established stages and exploring new venues in a remarkable 15 stage event from Tuesday, 14th October to Sunday, 19th October, 2025.  

 

Fast-rising poetic performer, Daudi Matsiko.
Photo: Felix MacKenzie-Barrow

I asked Ben why he had gone for a multi-venue format for Wild Paths 2025:

 

With its abundance of churches, chapels, secret cocktail dens, cinemas and dive bars, Norwich lends itself to a city-wide event of this kind.  It is a lot of fun to re-imagine how some of these venues could be reinvigorated with lighting, production and music.  We can create an identity peculiar to each venue and be daring and varied with artist bookings.  It is a great way to celebrate the character Norwich.

 

Kitty Perrin wakes to discover
Wild Paths is just days away.
Photo: Amy Marsh

As a celebration of the city quirkiness, the Wild Paths Festival is doing a remarkable job, but the icing on this very well-stacked cake is the music.  There is almost too much music being made in Norwich to comprehend.  This UNESCO City of Literature should also be tagged as a City of Music.  Wild Paths does a wonderful job of putting on as many local acts as humanly possible.  The bands may have started here and moved on to bigger things, like Brown Horse, moved towns and changed personnel, or locally based and well-loved performers like Mama Oh No,  Kitty Perrin and DH Temple. 

I am very impressed at the scale of the event and the range of bands and performers coming to town for this festival.  I wonder what Adult DVD will be like. It's a great band name, but I'm not entirely sure what to expect from these funsters!  At least 99% of the attraction of Wild Paths will be to hear the music being generated by the post-pandemic music generation.

 

Ben added, 

ADULT DVD dare you
to press PLAY.
Photo: Lindsay Melbourne
 I am really excited about the new spaces we are working with this year and we have some new events formats, such as the audio-visual performance at Cinema City, the candle-lit acoustic sets in the Hidden Street and the heavy music stage on the flat of a skate ramp in a church on King Street.  I am thrilled to see the return of the late-night jazz jams to St Laurence Church, particularly the Peng Femme Jam on Saturday night.  It will be a lively one!

Wild Paths Festival 2025 is the multi-venue festival that opens the city to everyone.  Anyone lucky enough to live in Norwich, or to be staying in the city that week is in for a treat.  


Multi-venue festivals have a proven successful in cities like Brighton and Edinburgh.  Even down in Suffolk, Ipswich has enjoyed some success, drawing attention to diverse music venues with its Brighten The Corners multi-venue festival of the past few years, but the scope of Wild Paths Festival is broader in reach and more compact.  


DH Temple has burrowed out
of the car showroom to be at 
 Space Studio, Wild Paths 2025

Wild Paths is a huge enterprise, featuring a vast range of entertainment, one which might prove daunting to any music fan.  Ben advises that the best way to negotiate the multiplicity of events is to head to the website:

 

Use the My Schedule function to plan out your route, but do be prepared to be spontaneous and try out something new and different to you.  The festival is all about musical discovery.  We have such a great variety of music acts, you may just stumble across something amazing.

 

Wild Paths 2025 takes place from Tuesday, 14th October to Sunday, 19th October 2025.  

 

Tickets available here.






Spencer Ide

28th September, 2025 

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