In summer 2026, we’ll gather to celebrate the twentieth edition of Latitude Festival. Twenty years of festival line ups that celebrate the breadth of the arts. Thousands of artists have moved us with theatre, with literature, with songs, with laughter, with dance. Together, we’ve experienced moments that simply couldn’t have happened anywhere else.
To celebrate it all, we’d like to invite you to join us in a conversation about the most important artists, the most important books, the most important theatre shows. Part mission statement, part cultural archive, part collective memory. A cultural and social survey and conversation with you, our audience, to establish in your eyes and our eyes what the most important aspects of modern life and culture have been.
Explore our full list of categories below.
For two decades, Latitude has championed bold and fearless voices. As we mark 20 years of music, arts, and ideas at Henham Park, our community voted to honour the young voices who have shaped our generation, and voted for Malala Yousafzai.
For twenty years, Latitude has been a home for words that move, challenge and connect us. Through poetry, stories are shared, identities explored, and truths spoken that draw us closer together. As we celebrate two decades of voices that have shaped our cultural landscape, we honour a poet whose work continues to resonate deeply; Inua Ellams.
The best illustrations capture what words alone cannot: a feeling, a truth, a moment of connection. Here we recognise the artists whose work stops us in our tracks.
Charlie Mackesy is our choice for The Most Important Illustrator of the last 20 years – a creator whose drawings have travelled from hospitals, to classrooms, and communities around the world.
This category celebrates the shifts that have helped bring once-taboo topics into the open, reshaping how we understand ourselves and one another. As one year ends and another begins, New Year’s Eve invites reflection. It’s a moment to look back at how far we’ve come, and to imagine what comes next…
At the link below, we’re reflecting on three societal changes that have shaped the past 20 years: mental health, body positivity and neurodiversity.
Sometimes, movement can speak louder than words, and never more so than on our Waterfront Stage. This category honours the choreographers who have made an incredible contribution to the dance canon, whether that’s an iconic production, extraordinary storytelling or a new movement language.
In July 2006, when Latitude first began, the smartphone was not yet mainstream; social media as we know it today didn’t exist. We’ll be sorting through twenty years of astonishing progress to identify the innovations that have – for better or worse – changed the way we connect, think, and live. Our community voted for The Smartphone as the winner of this category – an innovation that has undoubtedly changed our lives for generations to come.
This category honours the collective calls for justice, equality, and change that have marked the last twenty years. The campaigns and activism that have reshaped our cultural landscape and through difficult, necessary conversation, demanded that we hold others, and ourselves, to a higher standard.
This category honours these two movements that demanded change: Black Lives Matter and Me Too.
Podcasts and their creators have transformed how we share stories and ideas, turning everyday moments into opportunities for discovery and connection. This category celebrates the most important podcast or podcaster — those who inspire us, challenge us, and change the way we experience the world through sound.
Latitude HQ and Radio Times want to know which TV show has truly defined the last two decades of television and we need your vote! The past 20 years have given us some of the most extraordinary television ever made.
For some chefs, food is more than nourishment, sensational flavour, or three courses. Food is culture, memory, and identity. Our audience has voted Yotam Ottolenghi as the winner of this category – across his restaurants, cookbooks and weekly columns, he reshaped how we thought about flavour; bold, colourful and built around ingredients that once felt unfamiliar.
Great directors don’t just make films; they create unforgettable worlds. We champion the visionaries behind the camera: the film-makers with bold imagination, meticulous craft, and the ability to turn a script into something that moves millions.
This category recognises the moments in women’s sport that redefined possibility, inspired a generation, and demanded the world take notice. Or, put simply: the moments that changed the game.
When we think of our most important author, we’re thinking of those whose body of work during the last twenty years has an impact far beyond the bookshelf. Whether it’s stark new perspectives or sumptuous literary canon, we’ll work with you to identify our Most Important Author.
This category celebrates the individual novels that have sparked conversation, shifted perspectives, or showed us new ways to use words. We’ve passed them from hand to hand, and now we’ll share them with you.
Some books shape public discourse, challenge our assumptions, or give us new language to share complex ideas. In this category, we’ll share the books that made us think differently.
Theatre has the power to move us, to provoke us, and often to hold a mirror up to our world. This category celebrates the productions that have stayed with us long after the curtain falls.
Great albums do more than endure – they transform. This category recognises the most important album: one that may stand as the greatest of its kind, or as the record that changed the course of music, redefining genres and inspiring generations.
These are the musicians who have shaped the soundtrack of our lives over the last 20 years. On the stages of Latitude and beyond, they turn words and melodies into unforgettable moments.
It is conversations that ignite action. Policies may follow, but it begins with dialogue that shifts understanding and urgency. In our view, the most important climate conversation is the one that unites science, policy, and people. Transforming awareness into action for the planet’s future.
We’re reflecting on 20 brilliant years of memories, laughter and joy in Henham Park, And we’re asking the eternal question: which moment has defined 20 years of Latitude? Stay tuned to cast your vote and find out.
Twenty years of Latitude. Twenty years of a festival celebrating Theatre, Literature, Songs, Science, Dance, Poems.
Signifying twenty of the most important cultural moments, the most important artists, the most important books, the most important theatre shows.
Part mission statement, part cultural archive, part collective memory. In your eyes and our eyes.
A cultural conversation on the most important aspects of modern life and culture.
