Tag: Festivals

2000 Trees Festival Announces A Further 50 Bands for 2023 Festival

2000trees Festival has recently announced a whopping 50 further artists, acts and bands for their 2023 event. The festival takes place between Wednesday 5th July and Saturday 8th July at Upcote Farm near Cheltenham and followed up its 2018 Festival Award for Best Medium Sized festival with the same award in 2022.

Joining an already brilliant line up include Welsh party starters Skindred, who are unbelievably playing their first ever 2000trees, returning heroes and 2000trees favourites Deaf Havana.  Also announced are Empire State Bastard, a band that features Simon Neil from Biffy Clyro and Mike Vennart from Oceansize. One of the finest modern punk bands ever, The Bronx will be performing at the festival, Hastings 4 piece Kid Kapichi return with a brilliant debut album ‘This Time Next Year’ under their belts and Salt Lake City metalers Chelsea Grin make their festival debut.

Also announced today include some of 2000trees most beloved UK acts (Casey, The Xcerts, Martha, New Pagans), some rising stars of rock and hardcore (High Vis, One Step Closer, Fleshwater, Bad Nerves), some exciting new artists from across the genres (Witch Fever, Mimi Barks, As Everything Unfolds, Lake Malice, Cody Frost, Lynks) and some must not miss US acts (Prince Daddy & The Hyena, Meat Wave, Narrowhead).

From 2000trees Festival organiser James Scarlett – “Not only have we added some huge bands in Skindred, Deaf Havana and instant-legends Empire State Bastard, but we’re stoked to be bringing even more of the most exciting up-and-coming artists to 2000trees 2023. It’s just going to get bigger and better, don’t sleep on it if you want to join us. 4 Day Tickets will be the first to go and that’ll be sooner rather than later!”

Portals Festival 2023 Announces More Acts Including ’86 & AA

PORTALS Festival has announced a host of further bands for its huge 2023 event, including main stage headliner, the wonderful instrumental legends, MONO from Japan. Also announced includes recently reformed Leicester rock band Maybeshewill, singer songwriter AA Williams whose superb 2022 album ‘As The Moon rests’ graced many AOTY lists recently, Japanese noise rock band Bo Ningen and Atlanta Georgia 2 piece ’68.

Festival organisers Sam and Asher give us some insight into their 2023 headliners and what they mean to them and the event – “When we booked the first ever Portals all dayer at the New Cross Inn (South East London) in 2015, never in a million years did I think we would ever book a band with the stature of Mono. They are true pioneers, defining what we now know as post-rock. Their live show mesmerises and tranfixes you, transporting you to new worlds. The band formed in the late 90s, when we weren’t even in our teens, before we even knew what post-rock was. Around that time, grunge, punk and alt-rock were the weird, experimental, counter-culture music that we and our peers fell into. Who knew that the sonic landscape would be changed so dramatically by stripping away the aggression to the bare bones, and rebuilding music through extreme dynamic range and carefully crafted instrumentation. Mono were one of those bands, and it’s an honour to be able to bring them to such a dedicated, enthusiastic and reverent audience, such as our Portals Festival family.”

Announced are:

MONO, Maybeshewill, AA Williams, Bo Ningen, ’68, Pupil Slicer, GGGOLDDD, Paranoid Void, Straight Girl, El Moono, A-Tota-So and The Broken Islands.

Check out the full lineup below.

2021 UK Tech-Fest Cancelled, Postponed Until 2022

It has been announced, ue to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, this year’siteration of UK’s Tech-Fest has unfortunately been cancelled and postponed to go ahead in 2022.

At the time of writing it’s uncertain which bands from the 2021 line-up will be confirmed for 2022, but the organisers have released a statement which you can read below.

“It breaks our hearts to bring you this news that UK Tech-Fest 2021 is cancelled. UK Tech-Fest will now take place Thursday 30 June – Monday 4 July 2022. We’ve been exploring all options to make the festival happen this year, but plain and simply there’s just too much stacked against us.

We’re not the first to cancel and sadly we won’t be the last, as the main factor for us all is insurance. We really wish we had a crystal ball and could see what will happen in June. Going by the roadmap, in theory we should be fine, but the fact that the Government haven’t put their money where their mouth is and cough up a Government-backed insurance scheme for the festival and live events industry, says it all. As a small, independent festival we can’t afford to take the financial risk without the security and protection from such a scheme.

And then there’s the bands, many of our international artists have had to cancel their shows and can’t travel to the UK. We’ve explored booking a UK line-up but (while that would be awesome) there’s still the big risk without insurance.

Current ticket holders – your tickets will automatically be valid for 2022 and refunds will be available to those who wish. Thank you to those who rolled their tickets over last year or donated their tickets, if you are able to do so again this year we would be extremely grateful.

For all ticket enquiries check out our FAQs or email tickets@uktechfest.com

Tickets for 2022 – we’re delighted to announce we have instalment tickets available so you can pay for your ticket monthly from now to June 2022. It’s been a hard year so we hope this helps spread the cost.

If you can support us further we would love you to check out our new merch store – lots of discounts and bundles available!

Stay safe and we’ll see you in Newark next year. Much love, the Tech-Fest Team”

UK Tech-Fest 2022 is set to take place on June 30th to July 4th 2022 at Newark Showground, Newark.

Tickets for the event are on sale now and can be purchased online from the festival’s official website.

Tickets purchased for this year’s event will remain valid for 2022.

Slam Dunk Festival To Take Place In September 2021

After an initial update at the start of this month, it has been confirmed that Slam Dunk Festival will now be taking place in September.

The news comes in light of an update from the UK government on when large live events are allowed to come back, which is June 21. The festival was scheduled to take place on May 29 and 30.

You can read a short statement from festival director Ben Ray below:

And now the festival has been given a further update confirming the dates festivals for September 2021.

“We know that after the Prime Minister’s announcement last night, many of you will now be looking forward to retuning to normal over the getting back to enjoying gigs, club nights and festivals! Whilst we welcome the new laid out in the roadmap, it does unfortunately seal the fate of Slam Dunk Festival not happening over May Bank Holiday Weekend.

We predicated as much much and have, of course, been working hard on rescheduled dates. So, we are very pleased to say that Slam Dunk Festival will now take place on:

NORTH – Sat 04 Sept @ Temple Newsam

SOUTH – Sun 05 Sept @ Hatfield Park

All previously purchased tickets will be valid for the new dates. Hopefully moving back to September will allow enough leeway should there be any delays to the current roadmap. We are also very happy to say the vast majority of the line-up will be staying with us for September, and a line-up announcement will be coming shortly. Your ticket provider will be in touch soon to confirm the next steps and assist you if you cannot make the new dates.

We want to thank you all for your patience, understanding and support in what has been a hell of a year. We can’t wait to get back to it!

Team SDF xo”

EU Festivals Speak On Their Return As Dutch Government Set Date & Allow Trials

European festivals have spoken about their hopes of returning this summer, with the Dutch government setting up trial events next month and stating that festivals should be possible from July.

Following the recent cancellation of Glastonbury in the UK due to complications from the coronavirus pandemic, anticipation now surrounds how the rest of the festival season with Download Festival as well as Reading & Leeds Festival as to how they will play out. In the UK, festival organisers are calling on the government to provide a restart date for preparation, as well as insurance to help them survive if they have to cancel again.

Now, it seems that this has been granted for the music industry in the Netherlands.

“Great news: the Dutch government has announced that they aim to allow festivals after July 1,” a new statement reads on the website for Netherlands’ dance event Liquicity. “In case festivals still get canceled due to changing COVID circumstances, organisers are likely to be compensated for the costs. Festivals in The Netherlands are currently selling out in record pace due to this new government announcement.”

Liquicity, set to take place from July 16-18, also promised that festival-goers can request a full refund until May 16, that they’ll get their full money back if it gets cancelled or if they’re unable to get there due to travel bans, and that a ticket swap service had been set up for fans who still didn’t feel comfortable attending closer to the event.

Meanwhile, it has also been announced that two trial festivals on Netherlands festival Lowlands to test if they can be run safely and free of coronavirus. As We Rave You reports, 3000 participants at the events will have to present the negative result of a COVID-19 test, with their temperatures measured on entry and some being randomly selected for a “thick” test.

Attendees will also be given a lanyard that records moments of contact with others. Lowlands director Eric van Eerdenburg told a press conference that the measures they had in place would allow them to be prepared “in the event of a subsequent outbreak” at events later this summer.

“As a sector, we have to think five or six months ahead to organise a major event,” he said. “The government often looks at a situation in a few months from now.”

Primavera Sound festival’s recent trial for the return of gigs with no social distancing but same-day antigen testing found no infection rate, while a study in Germany last year found a “low to very low risk” or coronavirus spreading at indoor gigs – concluding that “good ventilation and social distancing are key”. This month will see a similar experiment take place in Luxembourg.

Meanwhile, trials have been announced to test “health passports” at small indoor gigs in the UK as a route to “reopening live music safely”.

Could Festivals And Big Shows Return After Easter In The UK?

Could Gigs and Festivals return after Easter in the UK? The signs are on the up after UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock said life could return back to normal by April. The comments came as he spoke on a Covid-19 vaccination program that could start as early as next month, following the development and successful trailers of vaccines by Pfizer, Moderna and Oxford University.

“The bulk of the vaccine rollout programme will be in January, February, March, and we hope that some time after Easter things will be able to start to get back to normal,” he told BBC Breakfast.

The goverment have ordered 100 million doeses of the Oxford vaccine subjec to being approved for public use, as well as 40 million of the Pfizer jab.

In terms of what this means for shows and touring, it’s a massive game changer for a lot of large shows such as Guns N’ Roses and Green Day as well as a lot of festivals returning just in time for the season next summer.