After months of rehearsals, teasers and city‑wide build‑up, Various Voices Brussels 2026 is heading towards its big finale: Let Your Heart Be Heard, a grand concert at ING Arena on Saturday 27 June. Dozens of choirs, thousands of singers and several queer artists will share one stage in Brussels’ largest concert hall, under the European flag. For KET readers who have been following the festival’s journey, this is the moment where all those stories, open rehearsals and invitations converge into one massive queer chorus.
From city‑wide warm‑up to arena finale
KET has been following Various Voices from the moment Brussels was announced as the host city: explaining how 120 LGBTQI+ choirs from around 18 countries would turn the capital into a singing playground, and how around 4,000 singers would be performing across Bozar, Cirque Royal, La Madeleine and the Royal Museums.
Another article focused on how Brussels was “building the biggest LGBTQI+ choir it has ever seen”, through open rehearsals and an invitation for locals to join a giant choir, not just watch from the balconies. Most recently, KET highlighted that “Brussels still has time to join the biggest LGBTQI+ choir at ING Arena”, underlining how accessible the project remained right up to the final weeks.
Let Your Heart Be Heard is the point where all those threads meet. Organised as the grand finale of the festival, the show is described as a “spectacular” evening of generational handover, marked by hope, freedom and solidarity. It is the moment when the anthem that gives the concert its name is sung not just by one choir, but by thousands of voices at once.
What happens on the ING Arena stage?
The concert brings together dozens of choirs and queer artists from across Europe, all sharing a stage in a venue that can host up to 7,000 people. Under the European flag, they will celebrate the progress made by LGBTQI+ communities and reflect on the future still to be built.
Choirs on the line‑up include names like Carmen Curlers (Denmark), Deep C Divas (UK), Equivox (France), European Queer Choir, Galakoor Queer Klassiek (Netherlands), Krakofonia (Poland), Out ’n Loud (Finland), Philhomoniker (Germany), Pink Singers (UK), Queerchor Hannover (Germany), Sing Out Brussels!, Singing Proud Nottingham (UK), The Friends of Dorothy (Finland), Vikerlased (Estonia) and WEIBrations (Germany).
Their voices will meet around the festival anthem “Let Your Heart Be Heard”, written to capture the shared dreams and hopes of this choir community and recorded in advance by Sing Out Brussels! to anchor the festival’s sound. On the night, the song becomes something else: a living, collective performance where each choir – and the giant choir project – adds its own timbre.
A last call to join the biggest LGBTQI+ choir Brussels has seen
One of the most radical aspects of Let Your Heart Be Heard is that it is not reserved only for registered festival choirs. As the organisers explained in the giant choir call covered by KET, the project is also open to people living in Brussels or elsewhere in Belgium who want to sing, even if they are not part of an existing ensemble.
Tickets for the show give access to three rehearsals at Bozar – on 19 April, 10 May and 7 June – designed to let local participants learn the anthem and feel at ease before stepping into the arena. For those who have been hesitating, the concert really is the last chance to be inside the story rather than just watching it: standing on the floor or in the stands as part of the largest LGBTQI+ choir Brussels has ever hosted, making their own heart heard alongside thousands of others.
Why this finale matters for queer Brussels
Various Voices is not just a festival “passing through”. It is an event organised by Sing Out Brussels!, the city’s own “Fabulous Queer Choir”, with the support of the European LGBTQI+ choir network Legato, to create a more welcoming, inclusive and supportive world through singing. The festival’s presence in Brussels has already meant new collaborations, visibility in major venues, and a sense of shared ownership over central cultural spaces.
The ING Arena finale pushes that further. Bringing thousands of queer voices together in the city’s largest concert hall is a statement: that LGBTQI+ stories, loves and struggles belong in big arenas, not just community rooms. It is also a rare intergenerational space where older and younger singers, long‑standing choirs and newer groups can literally pass the microphone from one generation to the next.
For KET’s readers – and for anyone who has felt too shy, too out of practice or too “not musical enough” to join a choir – this finale is a reminder that queer community is not only about perfection or performance. It is about showing up, breathing together and letting a shared song carry what words alone cannot say.
Practical info
- Show: Let Your Heart Be Heard – Various Voices Brussels 2026 finale
- Date: Saturday 27 June 2026, evening (concert is seated)
- Venue: ING Arena, Brussels’ largest concert hall
- Festival: Various Voices Brussels 2026, from 24 to 28 June 2026 across venues like Bozar, Cirque Royal, La Madeleine and the Royal Museums of Fine Arts
- Giant choir rehearsals: Bozar – 7 June (ticket holders)
- Tickets & info:
If you have been following the festival in KET or hearing about it from friends, this concert is one last, powerful chance to be part of the sound rather than just clapping along.
KET Magazine is a community‑driven, non‑profit magazine run by volunteers based in Brussels. Get in touch to share your thoughts or tell us about your activities. You can also promote your events on our website or support our work with a donation. Contact us at Info@ket.brussels.
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