Organisers of the Birmingham Jazz & Blues Festival today announced that the popular event would continue in 2026 after “overwhelming support” this year.

Jim Simpson, Birmingham’s experienced music impresario behind the festival, had previously voiced fears that this summer’s 41st festival might be the final one because of reduced funding.

But today Mr Simpson revealed how the general public’s ongoing generosity, plus the beginnings of relationships with new funding partners, had given him the confidence to organise the 42nd consecutive festival next year.

While more funding is still required, he explained there was now enough momentum to confirm next year’s Birmingham Jazz & Blues Festival would run from 24 July to 2 August 2026.

Mr Simpson said: “The real influence has been the overwhelming support shown by our audience. Not only were average audience numbers higher this year, but we were also humbled by many individuals’ generosity for the festival via financial contributions.

“These have ranged from old age pensioners insisting we accept a fiver to one individual donating £3,000. The current total of crowd-funding donations from the public has also nearly reached £6,000 and they are still coming in. Django Chutney, one of the bands in this year’s festival, even refused their performance fee to support us.

“On top of this, we have had new funding from the West Midlands Combined Authority, and we will explore this and other funding avenues for the 2026 festival. We very much need more funds to fully finance what will be the 42nd year, but we’re already in a much stronger position than this time last year.”

This year’s Birmingham Jazz & Blues Festival involved 178 performances, 166 with free admission, in 101 venues across the West Midlands, to a total audience of 64,498. The festival featured 311 performers from Birmingham, the West Midlands, across the UK, and from overseas, with many acknowledged as leading jazz and blues musicians.

International musicians included Ben Toury and Florence Joelle, both from Paris, France, Veronica & Max (Rome, Italy), Gianni Tbay (Torino, Italy), Stacy Mitchhart (Cincinnati, USA), and Lazy Fifty (Gisborne, New Zealand).

Venues included everywhere from parks and libraries to hotels, restaurants, cafes and bars, and from shopping centres, streets and squares to museums, art galleries, gardens, clubs and offices. Other venues featured a furniture store, an apartment block, historic buildings, and even onboard a canal boat.

As well as West Midlands Combined Authority, 2025 festival sponsors were Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council and The Musicians Union, who between them provided funding of £20,975. The festival’s GoFundMe campaign has raised £5,731 to date, while another £3,637 was contributed by private donors, making total funding of more than £30,000.

The festival’s hotel partner, Aloft Birmingham Eastside Hotel, also provided rooms free of charge for visiting musicians, with another 16 local companies and groups providing valuable support-in-kind, which Mr Simpson described as “a remarkable and probably unique display of collective support”.

A survey conducted during the 2025 festival received 1,216 written responses and found that 59% of the audience came from Birmingham or Sandwell, 28% from the rest of the West Midlands, 10% from elsewhere in the UK, and 3% from Europe and abroad.

Audience age profile was 48% aged 50-plus, 32% 30-50, 17% 18-30 and 3% under 18, with a quarter attending their first ever Birmingham Jazz & Blues Festival. An impressive 99% rated performances ‘very good’ (83%) or ‘Good’ (16%), while 86% said they expected to visit the festival again in 2026.