The Great Escape

Hurts
Lonelady
Chew Lips
Ruby Sun
Everything Everything
Basia Bulat
Broken Social Scene
Cold Cave
Gold Panda
Ghost Bees
Darwin Deez
Esben & The Witch
& Marina and The Diamonds
If the list above is any indicator, this year’s Great Escape should be awesome. Now in it’s sixth year, the festival is the UK’s answer to Texas’s South by Southwest with over 30 different venues in Brighton platforming over 350 bands. Some of the bands are established but the majority are emerging or underground giving audiences a chance to see them before they blow up — or disappear into obscurity.
Held over three days, The Great Escape runs discussions, networking sessions and panels with leading industry professionals in the daytime and live showcases and club nights in the evening. Having been to the festival for the last three years, my only grumble is that it’s become so popular it can be impossible to get into shows. I usually wouldn’t mind queuing 20 – 40 minutes to get into a show but the tight turnarounds between acts means you can end up running from one venue to the other and still miss the bands you wants to see most!
LoneLady:

The Great Escape Festival runs alongside the Brighton Festival that takes up the month of May. The festival is a real showcase for all that great music that Brighton has to offer as for the three days that it runs (13^th-​15^th of May) they cram literally hundreds of bands, both local and international, into 30 venues across town. This all sounds very exciting and there are definitely some aurally divine local treasures to found during this event. But it can be a little hit and miss, for among shimmering pool of talent that Brighton possesses there are plenty of festering logs of disappointment. This is to be expected I suppose given the volume of bands playing, a good read of the festival guide should be a good start to steering you clear of the gigs that make you wander if that ticket money couldn’t have gone somewhere better. But it’s not all live bands. As with any good festival there are other music based delights at the Great Escape, such as seminars with music industry folk, club nights and after show parties.
All things considered it’s definitely a good young festival but I wonder sometimes if it doesn’t get a little lost running with the Brighton festival and might it just be worth hanging on for Brighton live?

Every May Brighton holds host to The Great Escape, which ultimately turns into a scavenging rat race as you run from pillar to post across the city to catch your favourite bands. It runs along the same time as the Brighton Festival and has over 350 international and local bands at 30 venues over 3 days. The bigger bands are understandably always popular and once venues have capacity (which is quite often), you get turned away. So if there is a show you really want to see I would advise getting to the club a couple of acts beforehand to ensure entrance and a good spot.