What’s on at the Festival Hub at the ARC

GDODF Festival Hub: Advanced Research Centre (ARC), 11 Chapel Lane, Glasgow, G11 6EW

Festival Dates: Thursday 17 - Sunday 20 September 2026 - for full date and time information, please refer to individual event listings.

From Thursday 17 to Sunday 20 September, our Festival Hub at the Advanced Research Centre (ARC), University of Glasgow, will be one of the liveliest places for festivalgoers to experience Glasgow Doors Open Days Festival 2026 — with heritage talks, exhibitions, tours, film, family-friendly activities and even line dancing bringing the building and surrounding spaces to life.

Across the four-day Festival, the ARC will offer plenty of ways to explore this year’s theme through the stories held in Glasgow’s buildings, streets, communities and shared spaces. Expect exhibitions, film, research tours, hands-on activities, language and culture, and a packed Explorathon Saturday programme alongside a lively line-up of heritage talks.

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The Hub will also host The Lost Nightclubs of Glasgow exhibition across all four days of the Festival. Festivalgoers can visit the exhibition from 10am to 7pm on Thursday 17 and Friday 18 September, and from 10am to 4pm on Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 September. The exhibition will shine a light on nightlife as a vital part of the city’s cultural story, celebrating Glasgow’s clubbing and music heritage while asking what is lost when venues disappear — socially, creatively and economically. Visitors will also be encouraged to help expand the archive by sharing their own stories, photographs, flyers, promotional materials and memorabilia connected to Glasgow’s nightlife and music scenes.

On Thursday 17 September, the opening day of the Festival, CinemARC will present a special screening of Everybody to Kenmure Street, Felipe Bustos Sierra’s 2025 documentary about the spontaneous act of community resistance that followed a UK Home Office dawn raid in Pollokshields in May 2021. Doors open at 5.30pm with refreshments, the film runs from 5.40pm to 7.20pm, and a talk will follow from 7.20pm to 8pm, with more details to be announced soon.

Saturday 19 September will be packed with activity for festivalgoers of all ages. Visitors can join small-group Researchers at Work tours of the ARC at 12.15pm, 1pm and 1.45pm, meeting at ARC reception, for a behind-the-scenes look at the world-class research taking place in the building. From 12pm to 3pm, the Explorathon Festival will bring family-friendly activities and exhibits to the Hub, showcasing inspiring research from cutting-edge engineering to arts and humanities. In Studio 2, the Language Taster: Traditional Drinks & Recipes from Europe and Asia workshop will offer an interactive introduction to food, drink, vocabulary and traditions from Italy, Portugal, Spain and China. Outside in St Mungo Square, visitors can also pop on a cowboy hat and join free drop-in line dancing sessions from 12pm to 3pm.

The Talks Programme adds another dimension to the Hub, bringing Glasgow’s heritage to life through a series of engaging events that uncover different facets of the city’s past. Lost Glasgow’s Ye dancin’? takes audiences on an illustrated waltz through the city’s lost and forgotten dancehalls, nightclubs and discos, celebrating the venues that once defined Glasgow’s nightlife. Historic Environment Scotland’s Jackie Sangster will present Art Deco Days, an exploration of all things Deco, with a particular focus on Glasgow and Glasgow’s Empire Exhibition of 1938. Architect Fiona Sinclair shines a spotlight on St Vincent Street Church, while Judith Bowers leads two GDODF Fundraising talks that delve into Glasgow’s rich theatre and entertainment heritage and the stories behind the city’s historic pubs.

Together, these talks reflect this year’s Festival theme, Glasgow Goes Out: The Places That Made Us, exploring the spaces where we gather, perform, worship, socialise, remember and imagine. In doing so, they reveal how these places have shaped, and continue to shape, Glasgow’s identity and story.

Glasgow Doors Open Days Festival 2026 runs from Thursday 17 to Sunday 20 September.

Most ARC Festival Hub events are free, with the exception of our special GBPT fundraising talks, which will be launched for bookings on Monday 10th August.

All other free bookable ARC events are now live via the What’s On page of our website.

Explorathon Saturday is completely free to attend and drop in.

Check back on Monday 10 August to explore the full GDODF Talks Programme and book your place at the sessions you won’t want to miss.

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