New to Sheffield's culture calendar for 2025, Alpaca is a festival and conference on algorithmic patterns in the creative arts.
Through talks, hands-on workshops, concerts and partying, Alpaca will show how algorithms aren’t just about computers – they’re in knitting, drumming, dancing, juggling and many other human traditions. Alpaca will bring those connections alive through music, movement, and making.
Here’s a guide to what’s happening, and what tickets you need.
Schedule
Friday 12th September
The festival programme begins with the first session of talks on 12th September. Whether you are joining in-person or in-line, you will need a free ticket. There will be 12 talks on day 1, covering an exciting range of topics including knitting machines, drumming notation, electronic textiles to juggling.
There'll then be a seated concert “Musical patterns in deep time” in at CADS on Arley St, showcasing incredible instrumental musicians Kourosh Kanani + Matt Davies and Prathap Ramachandra, juxtaposed with live-coder Heavy Lifting (aka Lucy Cheesman) exploring patterns via code. In-person concert tickets start at £8 (or just £22 for a weekend pass).
Saturday 13th September
Day two begins with the first workshop session. Choose between learning sashiko patterns for textile repair, making and playing records with strange sonic patterns out of paper, and following procedures to make algorithmic drawings by hand. Tickets start at £10 each.
In the afternoon Alpaca will host eight more free talks, with topics including South Indian Kolam drawings, algorithmic pattern communities, and hiding messages in textiles.
Then the festival goes into a club night where they have booked out Panke and the neighbouring Delicious Clam on Exchange St, one for more energetic algorithmic dance music (aka ‘algorave’) and other experiments, and the other for more chilled out performances and craft activities. Tickets start at £10, or again the £22+ weekend pass is available.
Sunday 14th September
The final daytime of the festival weekend is dedicated to two more workshop sessions – choose between Japanese Kumihimo braids and making visual patterns with live code in the first one, and instrumental musical improvisation and juggling in the second. You can find full details and ticket links for all the workshops on the website.
Then in the evening, send off the festival with a final party with an energetic mix of pattern-based music, from Siberian trance, to percussion duo Wood + Metal and live coded dance music from pattern club residents Epiploke and Eye Measure. Tickets starting from £8, or as part of the bargain weekend concert pass.
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