Florence and Suede set for the Mercury Prize stage

Utilita Arena Newcastle hosts the show on 22 October, with short films for Dave and Paul McCartney.

The Mercury Prize confirmed its live performers on 30 September for the 2026 ceremony at Utilita Arena Newcastle on 22 October. Taking the stage will be Dove Ellis, Florence + the Machine, JADE, Knats, Kojey Radical, Nia Archives, Olivia Dean, RAYE, Suede and Pulp, who appear representing the War Child HELP(2) album. Short films will celebrate the nominated albums by Dave and Paul McCartney; neither artist will perform live.

Florence + the Machine arrive with a nomination for Everybody Scream. Suede are shortlisted for Antidepressants. Paul McCartney is nominated for The Boys of Dungeon Lane. The remainder of the shortlist comprises Dave with The Boy Who Played The Harp, Dove Ellis with Blizzard, JADE with THAT'S SHOWBIZ BABY!, Knats with A Great Day In Newcastle, Kojey Radical with Don't Look Down, Nia Archives with Emotional Junglist, Olivia Dean with The Art Of Loving and RAYE with THIS MUSIC MAY CONTAIN HOPE.

The judging panel is chaired by Jeff Smith. The overall winner will be decided on the night.

Florence + the Machine on the long climb

Florence + the Machine formed in London in 2007, with Florence Welch as lead vocalist alongside keyboardist Isabella Summers, guitarist Rob Ackroyd, drummer Christopher Lloyd Hayden and harpist Tom Monger. The band's early rise was helped by BBC Music Introducing, and they took the Critics' Choice award at the 2009 Brit Awards. Their music has long been marked by dramatic production and Welch's powerful vocals.

The debut album Lungs arrived in 2009, followed by Ceremonials in 2011 and a run of further records that kept the group in the centre of British indie rock. Dance Fever came in 2023, with a complete edition the same year, and Everybody Scream followed in 2025, also issued in a chamber version. A live album from the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, Symphony of Lungs, appeared in 2024. The Mercury nomination places the newest studio work in a direct line with that catalogue, and the Newcastle date puts the band back on a major awards stage as performers rather than spectators.

Suede's return to a prize they once won

Suede formed in London in 1989 around singer Brett Anderson, guitarist Justine Frischmann and bass player Mat Osman. Drawing on glam rock and post-punk, they were dubbed the best new band in Britain in 1992 and saw their self-titled debut album Suede top the UK Albums Chart the following year. That record became one of the fastest-selling debuts in nearly a decade, won the Mercury Music Prize and helped shape the Britpop moment, even as the band kept their distance from the label.

Antidepressants now brings them back into the Mercury conversation more than three decades after that first win. The live slot in Newcastle underlines how far the group have carried their sound beyond the early-nineties spotlight, and how the prize still treats a veteran catalogue and a new album as part of the same conversation.

McCartney, the shortlist and the night ahead

Paul McCartney's nomination for The Boys of Dungeon Lane adds another chapter to a career that began with the Beatles and has stretched across solo work, from McCartney and Ram in the early seventies through Band On The Run and on to McCartney III in 2020. A short film will stand in for the album, as it will for Dave's nominated set.

Knats, nominated for A Great Day In Newcastle, bring a local note to a show staged in the city. Pulp's appearance on behalf of the War Child HELP(2) album ties the night to a charitable compilation as well as to the competitive shortlist. The breadth of the bill — from JADE and RAYE to Kojey Radical, Nia Archives and Olivia Dean — keeps the evening pointed at the range of British releases the prize has always claimed to survey.

The awards night itself is now three weeks away. Who takes the prize remains unannounced; the performers, the short films and the broadcast partner are set.