Output Belfast returns with keynotes that set the agenda

Output Belfast, Ireland’s largest one-day music conference and showcase, returned to Belfast on 14 September 2026. The free event transformed the Cathedral Quarter into a hub of music-industry innovation, bringing together artists and industry professionals for a day of learning and networking.

The event featured almost 30 sessions, including workshops, masterclasses, panel discussions and talks covering all aspects of the music business. The programme was designed to equip Northern Ireland’s music community with the creative and commercial skills needed to succeed in an increasingly competitive industry.

The conference was based in The MAC, the Oh Yeah Music Centre and other venues across the Cathedral Quarter.

This year’s opening keynote featured an unprecedented convergence of music-industry powerhouses, including Tom Kiehl, chief executive of UK Music, and Catherine Martin, head of policy for Ireland at the Ivors Academy.

The conference explored a wide range of industry topics, including how producers will be paid in 2026, opportunities for collaboration between artists and brands, and an exclusive insight into the music career of Northern Ireland singer-songwriter Janet Devlin.

Organisers said Output’s mission is to break through barriers as attention spans shrink and industry gatekeepers multiply.

Registration was open via the official website. The venues kept the day walkable: The MAC, the Oh Yeah Music Centre and other Cathedral Quarter locations were close enough that delegates could move between sessions without losing the thread.

The opening keynotes bound the local and the cross-border. UK Music speaks for the recorded and live sectors across the water; the Ivors Academy brings the songwriting and rights perspective, with Martin’s Irish policy background adding a direct line into cultural administration on this island. Together they framed a programme that refused to separate high-level talk from the session that asks how a producer actually gets paid.

For an industry still built as much on meetings and shared rooms as on platforms and spreadsheets, a free day in one quarter of Belfast was more than a diary entry. It was a chance to test the year’s questions — artificial intelligence, tour money, new labels, Eurovision craft — in the company of people who deal with them for a living.