We at the Brighton & Hove News are really looking forward to this years annual Great Escape new musical festival, which will be taking place at numerous venues of varying size right across the city on Thursday 9th, Friday 10th and Saturday 11th May.
We have covered the event for the past two years and consider it THE highlight in our new music calendar. Where else in Europe can you discover so many up-and-coming new music acts from such a diverse range of tastes and styles? Again this year, everyone is catered for, whether your preference is grime, indie, country, metal, acoustic, soul, jazz or even punk.
The organisers have so far announced 160 acts that will be performing in Brighton and Hove during the famous three day festival. Every month or so they have another announcement, whereby they considerably add many more varying acts to the 160 already confirmed. Last year there was in excess of 500 artists appearing at the event and no doubt it will be exactly the same for this May. By the time the 9th May rolls around there will be hundreds of class acts to choose from.
This year so far there are acts confirmed that hail from the UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, USA, Norway, Italy, Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Iceland, Japan, New Zealand, Palestine, France, Austria, Portugal, Sweden, and South Korea. So you can see that Brighton is a music magnet for artists right across the planet!
There’s literally everything that you will need on their website. You can review all of the current 160 acts HERE. You will see the choice of ticket options and delegate passes with prices HERE and HERE.
Need somewhere to stay during The Great Escape? Then no worries as the organisers have a page for it HERE. You can find out the festival News HERE and learn more about the city from our tourist website HERE.
From our previous experience it is always wise to check to latest band performance times of your chosen acts and to plan your walking route in order that you don’t miss your fave new artist or band.
Ever since the first Great Escape new music festival in 2006, there have been many artists that have gone on to bigger and better things. Just a single example from each year would include The Kooks (2206), Adele (2007), The Wombats (2008), Mumford & Sons (2009), Ellie Goulding (2010), Ed Sheeran (2011), Grimes (2012), Christine & The Queens (2013), Charli XCX (2014), Rag ‘n’ Bone Man (2015), Stormzy (2016), Slaves (2017), and IDLES (2018).
You just never know who is going to make it, but the best idea is to have a listen to as many acts as you can beforehand, so that ideally you don’t miss out come the event. Obviously with over 500 artists appearing in 35 venues in one city at the same time, clashes of performances will inevitably incur. But the wonderful thing is that many artists will be playing more than one performance at different venues during the three days, so try and see if there is an alternative date for your chosen act.
Everyone’s different with their music taste and if there’s a large group of you then it will be quite difficult to please everyone all of the time. So you can either split the group and pray that you meet up again in or outside another venue or you could simply chillout and relax and go with the flow and see where your legs take you. There are no rules, as I’ve known people to just hang out at one venue for a day rather than rushing all over the place.
The best plan of action is closely monitor their website greatescapefestival.com and download their app. There is also their Facebook page which has over 46,000 likes.
They have a Pinterest page, an Instagram page, a and helpful Spotify playlist, so you can listen to the 2019 artists.
And there you have it in a nutshell – The Great Escape, Brighton 2019 – THE place to be.
Order your delegate passes HERE and your festival tickets HERE.
Good luck and enjoy.
