Lucknow has always been a city in conversation with verse from courtly mushairas to café open mics. Spill The Word Fest, run by the Lucknow-founded platform Kavita Kisse Kahaniyan, is widely recognised as the city’s first festival built entirely around spoken word.
From Open Mic to Spill The Word Fest
It started with small intimate open-mic nights at local cafés, where a handful of poets and storytellers performed for a few dozen listeners. That community became the foundation for the first full-scale edition in 2023. A bigger second season followed, and by Season 3 in November 2025, the festival had grown into a proper two-day event with a dedicated venue, a curated marketplace, and a lineup spanning multiple art forms. For a festival still in its early seasons, that’s a rare pace of growth and a clear sign of how much appetite Lucknow has for a stage built around the spoken word.
What Makes It “Lucknow’s First”
The city has long had literature festivals and cultural mahotsavs, but none built specifically around spoken word poetry meant to be performed and heard, not just read. That shapes the programming:
- Spoken word performances — original poetry and prose, often performed for the first time
- Storytelling — personal narratives and folklore told live from the stage
- Poetry — in Hindi, Urdu, and English
- Music and Sufi evenings — live sets and Qawwali between segments
- Workshops — helping newer artists find their stage voice
Inside the Spill The Word Fest Experience
Recent editions of Spill The Word Fest have been held at Rangmanch, inside Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Park in Gomti Nagar. Alongside performances, the festival features Thikana, a curated marketplace of homegrown brands, art, and food, and Bol Lucknowi, a stage dedicated to emerging artists performing for the first time.
A Fast-Growing Community
In just a few years, the team behind Spill The Word Fest has built a spoken word community spanning multiple cities, with dozens of events and hundreds of performers taking the stage though Lucknow remains its home ground. Each season has brought more performers, more sessions, and a bigger audience that now treats the festival as an annual fixture..
Artists Who Performed at Spill The Word Fest Last Year
Season 3 of Spill The Word Fest brought together a diverse artist lineup, including:
- Naresh Saxena
- Saadgi Band
- RJ Tashi
- Vinay Mishra (Lagbhag Utopia)
- Mansi Singh
- Vanshika Parmar
Their sets ranged across live music, spoken word, and storytelling, reflecting the festival’s mix of performance styles.
A New Edition of Spill The Word Fest Is on the Way
True to form, Spill The Word Fest isn’t slowing down. A new edition is already in the works, continuing the festival’s pattern of building on the previous season rather than repeating it — new performers, new segments, and, if past growth is anything to go by, an even bigger stage than before.
For poets, storytellers, and listeners alike, that’s the real story of Spill The Word Fest: a festival that started as a handful of voices in a café and, season by season, has grown into one of Lucknow’s most-watched cultural dates — with its most anticipated chapter still ahead.
They have announced they are comin back with another season with their promo reel. Exact dates and venue details for the next edition are typically announced closer to the event on Kavita Kisse Kahaniyan’s official social media pages — worth following if you don’t want to miss the announcement. @Kavita Kisse Kahaniyan
