Welcome to the XYZ Festival Guide! Here every month, you will find a look at what’s on for the month ahead with prices and times, inside news from the big guns on the festival scene and the lesser known boutique events. For more information on festivals on in our area and beyond to help you choose which festival tickets to buy, visit xyzbrighton.com
The Great Escape Festival @ Brighton; Thursday May 16 – Saturday May 18
Brighton’s answer to the SXSW festival, The Great Escape has been pushing forward the best in new music for years, and providing a platform for industry leaders to meet, greet, and network at a range of conferences, talks, panels and discussions across the city as part of the TGE convention. The south coast is set to welcome some of the biggest new artists this May as newly confirmed acts for the festival have been released, including Everything Everything with a Dome show (£7), Jake Isaac, the Klaxons, Sons and Lovers, The Physics House Band, and Tribes, with many more to be seen online. The festival line-up also includes Bastille, 1975, Chvrches, Dinosaur Pile-up, Hungry Kids of Hungary, the Klaxons, Marika Hackman, Snakadaktal, The Eighties Matchbox B-line Disaster, Three Trapped Tigers, Tom Odell, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, We Were Evergreen – deep breath – and Young Rival. Amongst many, many others.
Tickets for the various events are selling out fast, so be sure to snap them up quickly by checking out the festival website.
Alongside the music, Billy Bragg is one of the names attending the convention, giving guidance and his insights into the music industry, as part of the Focus on DIY convention strand, as will Korda Marshall, the founder of Infection, giving an inside perspective for artists looking to form label parternships or creating their own music ventures.
A 3-day festival ticket is £49.50 + booking fees. Dome shows are extra.
The full festival line-up, convention details, as well as more generic information on the festival and of course where to buy tickets, can all be found at mamacolive.com/thegreatescape
ATP Weekend 1 Curated By TV On The Radio @ Camber Sands; Friday May 10 – Sunday May 12
All Tomorrow’s Parties are ensuring that all of your tomorrows come at once with their
mix-tape style festival lining up some great acts for the spring. Headliners include De La Soul, Saul Williams, Spank Rock and Unknown Mortal Orchestra, amongst a host of others.
The festival eschews the teeming masses of other weekenders to offer more intimate performances, and aims to stand apart from the more corporate approach.
Tickets cover a number of forms of accommodation and cost £180 per person, plus booking fee.
For full line up information, greater ticket details, and just somewhere to have a nose around, check out their website at atpfestival.com
Field Day Festival @ Victoria Park, London; Friday May Saturday May 25
The village fete festival is back once again, bringing the best in alternate music to all of the most happening of hipsters in London. The line-up, as usual, boasts some great names, including Bat For Lashes, Chvrches, Four Tet, and Everything Everything.
For those who are currently unfamiliar with Field Day Festival, expect some great music, and a slightly
silly range of traditional English sports dat or fete activities available on the day. Think sack races, tug
of war, egg and spoon races and so on.
Tickets are £49.50, plus a booking fee, and are available from the festival website, alongside the full featured line-up, and more news, info, and errata about the event, including the best ways to get there.
Find out more now and make sure you book your tickets at fielddayfestivals.com
The Dublin Camden Crawl @ Dublin; Friday May Saturday May 4 – Monday May 6
Next month Dublin will be getting a bit noisier than usual. The first weekend in May hosts a festival similar in format to our own The Great Escape. The Camden Crawl is hosted across the city, and opens up a multitude of venues throughout the capital to the latest and greatest of Irish talent, and those with more international roots.
Artists playing across the fifteen different venues at which the event is hosted, include headliners The Black Lips, Holy Other, Fionn Regan and Fight Like Apes, plus Concrete Knives, Darkstar, O Emperor, Prince Rama, Ships, and many more.
Ticket prices range from £32.50 through to £49.50, plus a booking fee, with a limited five person group discount rate for the weekend tickets.
For more about the festival, the ticket prices, complete line-up information and to purchase your tickets, visit the official festival website online today at thecamdencrawl.com
Meadowlands Festival @ Lewes; Friday May Friday May 24 – Sunday May 26
With over 80 acts across a quadruplet of stages, Meadowlands is back in Brighton for 2013 with a range of music and entertainment, including this year the introduction of a comedy and spoken word tent.
The festival is set in the grounds of an Elizabethan manor house, and has a host of entertainers, traders and facilities, including bars, restaurants and a children’s area.
Tickets start from as little as £2 for a child’s day pass, through to £95 for an adult’s weekend ticket. Full pricing information, as well as further details about the festival, including he complete line-up
and venue information, can be found online at the festival website, with a load of other useful snippets.
Visit them online at meadowlandsfestival.com
Dot To Dot Festival @ Manchester, Bristol, Notts; Friday May Friday May 24 – Sunday May 26
The Dot to Dot festival is a pretty unique set-up. Despite being set across three days, the artists aren’t on a rotation; they’ll be playing each day, in each city. The festival moves from Manchester, to Bristol, to Nottingham, taking all the bands, all the gear, and all the music with it, with performances going on at various venues through each of the cities.
A sampling of the acts confirmed so far include Bo Ningen, Chapel Club, Lucy Rose, The 1975, and Wave Machines.
Tickets are £20 per ticket for each city, plus the vendor’s booking fees. Tickets, as well as more information on the festival, including a complete line-up, as well as a break-down for the dates, can be found online at the festival website at dottodotfestival.co.uk
Evolution Festival @ Newcastle; Friday May Sunday May 26 – Monday May 27
With acts split between Spiller’s Wharf and Ballast Hills and set across two days, Evolution has rounded up some incredible acts for your enjoyment this year. The Vaccines, Ellie Gouldng, Rudimental, Paloma Faith, Jake Bugg, Bastille, Aluna George, Sub Focus, Modestep, Lethal Bizzle … it would be easy just to fill this space with the acts and nothing else.
Tickets are £29.50 for a day pass, or just £39.50 for a weekend ticket, both subject to booking fees. However the full line-up, and more information, can of course be found online at their website evolutionfestival.co.uk
