Passenger to play open-air homecoming show at Hove Park, Brighton on 6 September 2026
Passenger plays Hove Park, Brighton on Sunday 6 September 2026 (credit: JOY. Concerts)
The streets of Brighton gave Passenger his first stage. On Sunday 6 September 2026, the city gives him a homecoming, as Mike Rosenberg brings his open-air show to Hove Park for a one-off billed as a 2026 hometown exclusive.
Presented by JOY. Concerts in partnership with BBC Radio Sussex, the concert is a full-circle moment for the singer-songwriter who built his audience busking on local pavements before going on to sell millions of records around the world. Now one of the UK's most celebrated independent artists, he returns to the place where it all started, this time to a crowd of thousands in one of the city's best-loved green spaces.
Joining him across the day are special guests The Staves, John Smith, Ber and Chris Simmons, making the Hove Park bill a genuine celebration of folk and songwriting talent.
The 2026 hometown exclusive at Hove Park, Goldstone Crescent (credit: JOY. Concerts)
Everything you need to know
The show takes place at Hove Park, Goldstone Crescent, Brighton and Hove, BN3 6BG. Doors open at 2pm with the music starting from 2pm and last entry at 7pm. It is a 14+ event, and under-18s must be accompanied by an adult aged 18 or over.
Tickets are on sale now through AXS. For anyone who needs wheelchair or accessible platform access, there is a dedicated waiting list, and PA tickets can be arranged by emailing the promoter at hello@joyconcerts.com.
You can also find full event information and travel details at the official site, passengerbrighton.com, and get directions to the park via Google Maps.
Special guests joining Passenger at Hove Park on 6 September 2026 (credit: JOY. Concerts)
From Brighton busker to global stage
Michael David Rosenberg was born in Brighton on 17 May 1984 and learned classical guitar as a boy, writing his first songs in his mid-teens. He left school at 16 to chase music, spending the next few years busking through England and Australia, an apprenticeship on the pavement that shaped the intimate, storytelling style he is known for today.
His route into a career ran straight through the local scene. After a 2002 benefit concert in London he met his future writing partner Andrew Phillips, and back home the pair pooled their influences, from Simon and Garfunkel to DJ Shadow, and began writing at Phillips' studio in Hove. In 2003, in Brighton and Hove, they formed the band Passenger, drawing in players they knew through the city's music community. The five-piece released one album, Wicked Man's Rest, in 2007 before splitting in 2009.
Rosenberg kept the Passenger name for his solo work and went back to busking, this time as a one-man act. A move to Australia in 2009 built him a devoted following and led, in 2012, to the album that changed everything. All The Little Lights carried the single Let Her Go, a song that topped the charts in more than a dozen countries, gathered billions of streams and remains one of the most Shazamed tracks of all time.
The accolades followed: a Brit Award nomination for British Single of the Year and an Ivor Novello Award for Most Performed Work. As a fiercely independent artist he has since released a long run of studio albums, many tied to charitable causes, from food banks and homelessness to reforestation and ocean plastic. More recently he wrote the music and lyrics for the stage musical of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, which premiered in Chichester before a West End transfer, adding an Olivier Awards nomination to his name.
Through all of it, the connection to home has held. Rosenberg still lives in Brighton, and for many who grew up here, moved here or simply found their feet here, his early songs are woven into the memory of the place itself. That is what makes a Hove Park homecoming feel like more than another tour date.
Passenger, aka Brighton-born Mike Rosenberg, performing live in 2013 (credit: Harald Krichel, CC BY-SA 3.0)
A hometown moment worth being there for
Hove Park offers something different from the arenas and festival stages Passenger has grown used to. Open air, late-summer light and a crowd that knows every word, the setting suits an artist whose quietest moments carry the furthest. Few performers can grow this big and still return to where they started and make it feel personal rather than nostalgic.
For a city that watched him start out with a guitar and an open case, this is a chance to be part of the full-circle moment. Tickets are on sale now, and on 6 September the streets that first heard him will hear him again, only louder.
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