The Great Escape, the UK’s own version of SXSW, is growing in prominence across the industry, with bands and delegates coming from far and wide to showcase their work in the lovely seaside town of Brighton.
This year, we hosted a showcase at the event for the first time ever and it was a huge success. A queue started forming at 11:30am and the venue — The Hope — was full to capacity by the time The Crookes (pictured) took the stage at 12:15 in the afternoon. Defying their early stage time, the Sheffield rockers produced hit after hit.
People came and went, but the venue remained packed to the rafters throughout the afternoon, with The Big Sleep shredding their way through a noisy set featuring tracks from their recent album, Nature Experiments.
Hey Sholay, a personal favourite, then produced one of the performances of the weekend — with a short but intense set featuring DiS-lauded singles “Wishbone” and “The Bears, The Clocks, The Bees” as well as their upcoming hit, “Burning.”
Headlining the stage, Hollie Cook Soundsystem, featuring the lady herself, Prince Fatty and Horseman changed the rhythm and delighted the crowd with their own unique brand of dub.
As for the rest of the festival, we had a whole plethora of acts represented, from the loud, loud Hawk Eyes to psychedelic rockers Weird Dreams and one of our festival highlights, Devin. The Brooklyn rocker is everything a frontman should be.
Now, for your “Best Of” run down of The Great Escape…
Put your party pants on people. We’re going to Brighton. Yes, you guessed it – to The Great Escape Festival. TGE runs UK’s leading music business conference (programmed by CMU) alongside the Brighton venue-hosted music festival that showcases 300+ new bands from around the globe. Of course we had to get in on this so The Orchard is hosting its very first TGE Showcase. We also put together this Spotify Playlist so you can hear some tracks from Orchard bands attending the festival. Details on our showcase below:
Saturday May 12th
Noon to 4PM
The Hope on Queens Road (Nr Church Street)
*Get in free with a TGE badge or wristband
12:15PM The Crookes
1PM The Big Sleep
2PM Hey Sholay
3PM Hollie Cook Soundsystem
We have some great partners for this event as well. A revolving door of unique and exciting content, Strongroom Alive is one of the UK’s foremost digital radio stations and is a one-stop shop for the latest on music, fashion and art. They broadcast straight from the heart of London’s Shoreditch area. Also on board is Killing Moon Ltd who have become one of the UK’s leading music blogs and are continuously on the pulse of what is what and who is who in indie music, in addition to signing some of these acts to their own singles label. Finally, we have MusicMetric who empower artists by strengthening their marketing, promo and sales through impressive analytics, trends identification and data analysis.
Come out and see us if you’re there. Don’t hesitate to email us if you want to meet up, learn about The Orchard, or touch base! (UK/Liz @ liz@theorchard.com and US/Mollie @ mbrown@theorchard.com)
