Harry Styles to curate Meltdown festival at London’s Southbank Centre – and play an intimate gig

Harry Styles is to curate the Meltdown festival at London’s Southbank Centre, coinciding with the 75th anniversary of the venue.The 32-year-old pop star follows Little Simz as curator of the 2025 event, and previous editions led by artists including Grace Jones, Nile Rodgers and Robert Smith of The Cure.In a statement, Styles said: “I’m deeply honoured to curate the Meltdown festival, especially for the Southbank Centre’s 75th anniversary year. My goal as the curator is to share the music and art that I love, and to celebrate the rich history of the venue.“We both share a passionate belief that music is a vital part of life. It brings us together, and the Southbank Centre has been at the heart of it, providing easy access to great music for the past 75 years. I’m incredibly grateful to Southbank for having me – it’s really exciting for me to have this opportunity in such an iconic venue.”No performers have yet been announced for the 31st edition of the festival, spanning 11-21 June, other than what will be a rare intimate show by Styles himself. The recently announced tour for Styles’s upcoming album, Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally will make a record-breaking 12 stops at Wembley, each with a capacity of around 90,000 fans; the Southbank Centre’s main auditorium seats 2,700.A press release for the event states that Styles’s curatorship “will draw on his broad influences – from pop, soul, electronic and rock to underground scenes and emerging young British talent”. Styles’s recent comeback single, Aperture, channelled the softer end of dance music and was inspired, he said, by his experience of seeing LCD Soundsystem live for the first time.The schedule will also include a public programme of “interactive, participatory and free events, designed to engage young people across the UK and reflect ways younger audiences increasingly experience culture”, according to a release.Southbank Centre artistic director Mark Ball said that they were “thrilled and excited that Harry Styles’s Meltdown sits at the heart of a 75th anniversary year that champions young people, their curiosity and creative freedom”. He added that the star’s plans feel “like a natural expression of what the Southbank Centre exists to do, and we are delighted to become his creative playground in our anniversary year”.After the end of his former band One Direction in 2016, Styles released his self-titled debut solo album in 2017. A second, Fine Line, arrived in 2019. Of all the former One Direction members, Styles has received the most critical acclaim – as well as commercial – and earned praise for the breadth of his inspirations. Nevertheless, he is the most pop-leaning act ever to curate Meltdown, whose curators have tended to come from the alternative and underground worlds rather than TV talent shows.Styles’s own tour commences in Amsterdam on 16 May, after a one-off performance at Manchester’s Co-op Live arena, in which he is an investor. The full lineup and ticket sale announcement for Meltdown will be announced in the spring.