CHEER UP LUV: Eliza Hatch joins speaker line-up for debut SISTALAND festival

Feminist artist and Cheer Up Luv founder Eliza Hatch and award-winning playwright and show-stopping comedian Temi Wilkey have been announced as the final headline speakers for SISTALAND - a new cultural festival launching in Bristol on Tuesday 11 - Wednesday 12 November. Final tickets are on sale now at sistalandfestival.uk

Together, Hatch and Wilkey join a powerful line-up of over 30 contributors across two days of talks, workshops and performances designed to centre women, trans women and non-binary voices in the UK’s creative industries. Taking place at Sparks Bristol, SISTALAND is both a celebration and a call to action - reimagining who gets to lead, stay and thrive in cultural spaces.

Reflecting this mission, Hatch will join Amanda Graham, Vanessa Coates and Wilkey for Pitch Without Permission: A Panel Discussion with Q&A - an empowering session that flips the script on traditional pitching. Too often, the creative process shuts out women and underrepresented talent before the conversation even begins. This discussion asks what happens when we stop waiting for permission and start telling our stories on our own terms, offering real-world strategies, confidence-building tools and unapologetic honesty about navigating rejection, bias and the power dynamics at play.

Festival founder, Nikita Dare said: “This final programme brings exactly what SISTALAND was built for - lived experience, creative fire and people actively changing the system. These aren’t abstract conversations; they’re rooted in survival, resistance and imagination. It’s about legacy, not just visibility.”

In addition to Eliza Hatch, the SISTALAND programme features a standout line-up of artists, producers and performers reimagining the creative sector from the ground up. 

Writer and director Tia Salisbury leads Funny Business, a sharp and insightful masterclass on storytelling, stand-up and radical empowerment. The final workshop, Risky Business, will be led by certified intimacy coordinators Samantha Murray and Sabrina Dallot Seguro, whose combined expertise in trauma-informed care, consent choreography and industry advocacy brings a powerful lens to safety and storytelling in today’s landscape.

In From Freelancer to Founder, creative entrepreneurs including Lei Money (Loot Creative), Elle Dimond, and Katie Cadwell (Lucky Dip) share what it takes to build sustainable, values-led creative businesses. And in Access Coordinators Demystified, disability inclusion consultant Abbie Hills takes audiences behind the scenes of one of the fastest-n the craft of comedy, and joins a powerful panel on burnout and boundaries alongside Celia Hodgson and Lu Featherstone, founder of the Zero Fucks Club. Featherstone also brings her acclaimed one-woman show Self Love Unleashed to the festival - a bold blend of growing and most essential roles in UK production - advocating for accessibility from day one.

The festival closes with The Power of One, a keynote-style moment of reflection that invites attendees to step into the fearless version of themself and consider what sustainable creativity might actually look like. Combining practical insight, urgent conversation and artistic expression, SISTALAND positions itself as a reset - not just for creatives, but for the systems they work within.

Tickets for SISTALAND are priced at £30 per day or £50 for both days, with subsidised options available. The full programme, speaker bios and booking info are available now at www.sistalandfestival.uk.