Here follows some useful information for those traveling to Alpaca Festival in Sheffield.

See also our map of festival venues with a few food and drink recommendations.

Sheffield UK is a steel city, and still is a fine city of makers. Here’s our local take on Sheffield, but be sure to see the Our Favourite Places website for more Sheffield culture.

Events and things to do

Other events on during/around Alpaca time:

• For club goers, Sheffield’s most imaginative promoters Interworld Media have an excellent night of live electronics, DJing and CRT visuals on Friday 12th September from 23:00 until 04:00 – a late enough start that it doesn’t clash with our Friday concert! We have a discount code for Alpaca ticket holders – please get in touch if we haven’t already emailed it to you.
• Sensoria Festival has an installation running by renowned sound recordists Chris Watson and Izabela Dluzyk – new work based on field recordings made at Puszcza Bialowieska, Europe’s last remaining primaeval forest, on the border between Poland and Belarus. The installation is running on Saturday 13th September, booking advised. There is also a performance the day before, although that does clash with our concert. Do check our the rest of their excellent programme!
• Dom Whiting will be doing one of his Drum n Bass mass cycle rides on Sunday 14th September, starting from Devonshire Green, 2pm
• Castlegate festival is happening across multiple venues on the castlegate side of Sheffield, on the 13/14th and 19/20th September.
• No Bounds Festival is Sheffield’s annual rave-oriented festival of music and art, happening 10-12th October 2025

Regular happenings

• Pattern Club Sheffield – the organisers of Alpaca Festival run regular meetups, workshops and other events.
• Doc/Fest – documentary and digital media festival
• Skeptics in the Pub – Science and philosophy talks, invariably followed by lively and extensive discussion
• Sheffield Astronomical Society – keeping eyes on the skies
• Cycle Sheffield – cycling campaigns, events etc.
• Digital Sheffield – digital creative and digital people, check their events page for a digest of Sheffield tech events
• Creative mornings – monthly 20 min breakfast series for creative types

Spaces

• The industrial museums
• Site gallery – contemporary art exhibitions, talks and events
• Paternoster lifts – in the Arts Tower next to Western Bank library
• Gut Level – Queer-led DIY music + arts space
• Megatron, one of the more private sections of the River Sheaf
• Hackers and Makers – a hackspace in Portland Works
• Museums Sheffield – always something interesting on at Millennium Gallery, Weston Park and Graves
• Hatch – collective and arts space emerging from the old “Audacious space” hosting some strange music events

Local etiquette

People observe bus queues here. If you arrive at an empty bus stop and sit in the middle of the bench, people will still queue behind you, even if the stop serves multiple buses, even if this means queuing outside the bus shelter when it’s raining. When a bus approaches the bus stop, you do a polite dance with the person in front and behind, and the queue diverges.

Don’t worry if everyone (from little old ladies to burly bus drivers, irrespective of your or their gender identity/sexuality) calls you “love” (or any other form of diminutive.) Best to just go with it and start using it yourself liberally. It’s quite lovely (!) once you get used to it.

Local food

For meat eaters, the local delicacy is the hot pork sandwich, available at many places including Béres in the city centre. You will be asked “everything on?”, which refers to stuffing and crackling. You might want to ask that your bread is “not dipped” in the juices. After you get asked if you want “everything on” they will then ask you if you want apple sauce as well.

As both a city of sanctuary and host to many international students, Sheffield has a wealth of excellent international cuisine. The Ozmen Extra world supermarket is incredible for its huge range and great value, well worth a visit.

We also have a surprising number of food halls. Check out Cambridge Street Collective, Sheffield Plate, or a bit further out, Cutlery Works.

There’s also Parkin.

Henderson’s Relish is bought in a distinctive orange and black bottle, and is the city’s very own Lea & Perrins ‘Worcester Sauce’ variant. It is typically dribbled into gravy savouries, like stews and pies, although many also have it atop cheese on toast and beans on toast. Steel City cricketer and one-time England captain Michael Vaughan claimed to have had it in his Weetabix during the TMS commentary of the 1st England vs. South Africa test 2012, although this is disgusting.

For fast food you’ll find Street Food Chef serves all your burrito requirements.

Local beer

The many notable central pubs include The Rutland Arms (4 mins from station. Food, real ales, ‘net and comprehensive jukebox) and the Sheffield Tap (actually in the train station, another very wide range of ales), the Beer Engine, and Triple Point Brewery.