The Cure announce new festival show for next summer

(Image credit: Scott Legato/Getty Images)

The Cure look to be gearing up for a summer of live activity in 2026, releasing news on their social media accounts of a fresh festival headline slot in addition to last week’s news that Robert Smith & co. would be topping the bill at Paris festival Rock En Seine at the end of August next year. They will head to Austria two months before that to headline Nova Rock Festival on Friday 12^th June.

It seems highly unlikely they will keep the diary free between the two events, with the implication being that we’re set for a summer of Cure headliner slots. Robert Smith had originally hinted that the band would tour in autumn of this year, telling 6Music presenter Matt Everitt for an interview on the band’s website that he wanted to finish the follow-up to their 2024 record Songs Of A Lost World first – presumably, in trademark Smith fashion, those sessions have overrun.

The downside of their return is that these dates could well be the beginning of the end for the goth-pop icons. Smith told Everitt in the same interview that plans to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the band in 2028 and 50 years of their 1979 debut album Three Imaginary Boys a year later could well be it when it comes to the band playing live. “I’m 70 in 2029,” he said. “If I make it that far, that’s it.”

There’s a few years yet, of course – and hopefully another new record will be arriving imminently too – but it all adds to the sense that The Cure will be one of the must-see acts of next summer with a growing certainty that it will only be a matter of time before UK dates are announced.

Niall Doherty is a writer and editor whose work can be found in Classic Rock, The Guardian, Music Week, FourFourTwo, Champions Journal, on Apple Music and more. Formerly the Deputy Editor of Q magazine, he co-runs the music Substack letter The New Cue with fellow former Q colleague Ted Kessler. He is also Reviews Editor at Record Collector. Over the years, he's interviewed some of the world's biggest stars, including Elton John, Coldplay, Radiohead, Liam and Noel Gallagher, Florence + The Machine, Arctic Monkeys, Muse, Pearl Jam, Depeche Mode, Robert Plant and more.

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