FREE ADMISSION!

The Youth Performance Festival is a collaborative program of Play Incubation Collective and the Northampton Center for the Arts at 33 Hawley, in partnership with Holyoke Media. Now in its 7th year, YPF is a FREE opportunity for youth artists ages 8-18 to create original performance pieces with the guidance of mentor artists in the fields of music, dance, theater, poetry/spoken word, video/animation, and more. YPF centers the creative agency of young artists, and is committed to supporting them as they discover their own creative processes. For YPF 2026, we are partnering with Holyoke Media to offer a Holyoke-based youth cohort in addition to the Northampton cohort as part of our ongoing commitment to expanding YPF in Western Mass. YPF is an outstanding festival experience that warms hearts and inspires creativity in audience members of all ages!

The 2026 Youth Performance Festival is sponsored in part by the Northampton, Hadley, and Holyoke Cultural Councils, local agencies that are a part of the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency, as well as the City of Northampton ARPA Funds.