Harry Styles holds Meltdown Festival at London’s Southbank Center – and plays an intimate gig | Harry Styles

Harry Styles will headline the Meltdown Festival at London’s Southbank Centre, coinciding with the venue’s 75th anniversary.

The 32-year-old pop star follows Little Sims as curator for the 2025 event, and previous editions have been led by artists including Grace Jones, Nile Rodgers and The Cure’s Robert Smith.

In a statement, Styles said: “I am deeply honored to be curating the Meltdown Festival, especially on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Southbank Centre. My goal as curator is to share the music and art I love, and celebrate the rich history of the venue.”

“We both share a deep belief that music is a vital part of life. It brings us together, and the Southbank Center has been at the heart of that, providing easy access to great music over the past 75 years. I’m very grateful to Southbank for hosting me – it’s really exciting for me to have this opportunity at such an iconic venue.”

No performers have been announced yet for the festival’s 31st edition, which runs from June 11-21, other than what will be a rare intimate show by Styles himself. The recently announced tour for Styles’ upcoming album Kiss All the Time. Disco, at times will make a record 12 stops at Wembley, each with a capacity of around 90,000 fans; The main hall at the Southbank Center has a seating capacity of 2,700.

A press release for the event states that Styles’ supervision will “draw on his broad influences – from pop, soul, electronic and rock to underground scenes and emerging young British talent”. Styles’ latest comeback single, Aperture, channeled the softer end of dance music, inspired, he said, by his experience seeing LCD Soundsystem live for the first time.

The schedule will also include a public program of “interactive, participatory and free events, designed to engage young people across the UK and reflect the ways in which younger audiences are increasingly experiencing culture,” according to the statement.

Mark Ball, Artistic Director of the Southbank Centre, said they were “thrilled and excited that Harry Styles’ Meltdown is at the heart of the 75th anniversary year supporting young people, their curiosity and creative freedom”. He added that the star’s plans seemed like a “natural expression of what Southbank Center is here for, and we’re thrilled to become his creative playground in our anniversary year.”

Following the end of his former band One Direction in 2016, Styles released his self-titled debut solo album in 2017. A second album, Fine Line, arrived in 2019. Of all the former One Direction members, Styles has received the most critical – as well as commercial – acclaim and has received praise for the breadth of his inspiration. However, he is the most pop-inclined person ever to curate Meltdown, whose curators tended to come from the alternative and underground worlds rather than TV talent shows.

Styles’ own tour begins in Amsterdam on May 16, after a one-off performance at Manchester’s Co-op Live arena, in which he is an investor. The full lineup and ticket sale for Meltdown will be announced in the spring.