Chapel Hill Lands Josh Johnson as UNC Launches Four-Day Arts Festival

Chapel Hill is getting a brand-new arts festival next February, and it's already landing a big name: comedian and Daily Show host Josh Johnson will headline a Saturday night show at Memorial Hall as the centerpiece of Carolina Performing Arts' first-ever “All. Together. Now.” festival. The four-day event runs February 18 through 21, 2027, spreading performances, talks and workshops across both the UNC-Chapel Hill campus and downtown storefronts.

The festival was first announced by UNC-Chapel Hill back in May, which laid out the plan for a multi-day experience blending university venues with the town's commercial core. As reported by CBS 17, the festival previewed by Carolina Performing Arts will include performances, talks and workshops rolled into a single ticketed pass. UNC's own announcement, via UNC-Chapel Hill, confirmed the festival's dual campus-downtown footprint and its placement on the calendar next February.

Johnson's stand-up set, confirmed in an August lineup release from UNC-Chapel Hill, is set for February 20 at Memorial Hall and will be sold as a separately ticketed, reserved-seating show alongside the broader festival pass. Memorial Hall itself carries some history worth noting: the 1,434-seat venue reopened in August 2005 after an $18 million renovation funded by state bonds, university funds and private donors, following a 1931 rebuild of the original 1885 structure. It remains Carolina Performing Arts' largest venue and a longtime anchor of Chapel Hill's live entertainment scene.

A Theme of Love and Hope, and a Lineup That Spans Genres

Organizers built the inaugural festival around the theme “love and hope,” which UNC-Chapel Hill says will serve as the first of what's intended to be a rotating annual curatorial focus. The lineup announced in August ranges widely: the immersive dome experience “Utopian Hotline” will take over Morehead Planetarium, choral group The Crossing will perform David Lang's “poor hymnal,” Dahlak Brathwaite brings his hip-hop theater piece “Try/Step/Trip,” and string quartet Brooklyn Rider will present “Star-Crossed.”

That cross-genre mix reflects a broader shift for Carolina Performing Arts, which was established in 2005 under inaugural executive director Emil Kang and has commissioned 80 original productions over its first two decades. Rather than staging one more single-night show in an auditorium, the organization is testing a decentralized festival model that pushes programming into smaller, unconventional spaces around town.

Day Passes, Free Gatherings and $11 Student Tickets

Access to the festival runs on a day-pass model, according to Carolina Performing Arts, with free community gatherings built in for public artmaking and jam sessions alongside the ticketed shows. UNC students can get in for $11, consistent with the discounted pricing Carolina Performing Arts already offers across its full performing arts season.

Venues for the festival stretch well beyond Memorial Hall, spanning Morehead Planetarium and Science Center, Ackland Art Museum, Chapel of the Cross, Varsity Theatre, Joan H. Gillings ArtSpace, Graham Memorial, and even local coffee shop Epilogue downtown. The spread is meant to send attendees wandering between campus buildings and Franklin Street storefronts over the course of the weekend.

Part of a Bigger Season, With Deeper Roots

“All. Together. Now.” is one piece of Carolina Performing Arts' larger 2026-27 “Season of Wonder,” which also brings visiting artists including soprano Renée Fleming and violinist Alexi Kenney to Chapel Hill. The festival also draws on CPA's “Southern Futures” initiative, launched in 2021, through which the organization co-commissions interdisciplinary works incorporating restorative justice practices and regional storytelling alongside UNC faculty and community partners.

Open questions remain about how the festival's decentralized format will hold up in practice. It's not yet clear how smoothly attendees will move between campus and downtown venues during North Carolina's winter weather in February 2027, or how ticket sales and capacity will be managed at smaller spaces like the planetarium dome and Epilogue coffee shop. Memorial Hall has anchored Chapel Hill's live entertainment scene for two decades, a role Hoodline noted years ago, and this new festival marks Carolina Performing Arts' biggest attempt yet to extend that role beyond a single stage.