(THE VACCINES play their fifth ever gig, Dempseys Bar, SWN Festival 2010. Pic by Shutterfox)

 

Thursday 20th October – Sunday 23rd October

 

Yes. Yes. Yes. SWN Festival returns for its fifth year as Wales’ premier new music festival. We honestly never thought we’d get this far. In fact we never thought we’d make it to the second year. Yet here we are, five years strong, bigger and brighter every year with the best  to come. It’s our birthday. Let’s celebrate.

 

After an incredible demand for tickets last year we’re delighted to announce that we adding a WHOLE EXTRA DAY to SWN Festival 2011. I’m so excited I needed capitals for that. The festival will therefore take place across the evening of Thursday 20th October and Friday 21st October then through the days and nights of Saturday 22nd October and Sunday 23rd October. That’s a full day of loads more new music, new bands and bonus SWN fun through the Sunday. Grab a Sunday lunch then off you go again. We’ll wind things up a little earlier on the Sunday evening for those who have work the next morning, though there’ll be a few events for night owls who are taking Monday off to rest. That’ll include us.

 

Each year at SWN we work with our favourite local, Welsh and UK peeps who co-host stages with us. We want you to fall in love with them as we have. With an extra day to the festival we’ve more co-hosts than ever before. Already confirmed to be in the Welsh capital hosting stages with us are Artrocker, Barely Regal Records, BBC Radio 1, Bella Union, British Music Abroad, Bubblewrap, Clash, Crack, Everybody’s Stalking, Flux=Rad, Going Deaf For A Living. In Chapters, Kerrang!, Lesson Number 1, Cardiff Live Music Society, Memphis Industries, Moshi Moshi, New Sound Wales, NYTH, NME, Pink Mist (The Big Scary Monsters / Holy Road / and Blood & Biscuits labels), Propaganda, Radarmaker, Rockfeedback, See Monkey Do Monkey, STHCC, Shape, Signature, The Line Of Best Fit, The Rusty Trombone of God, Y Selar and Zoo Pop.

 

And the bands. Oh the bands! There’ll be around 200 acts playing in total. 200. TWO HUNDRED. That’s a lot of bands. Hopefully you’ll know some of them, and hopefully there’ll be lots you don’t know. That’s the idea. We want you to come and discover them. This year, thanks to the awesome Soundcloud and the skills of Radarmaker, we have a player on www.swnfest.com so you can listen to tracks from all of the bands who are playing. There’s links on each band’s profile so you can go off and hear more too. You’ve got four months, starting now, to start listening and writing up lists of who you like and who you want to see. Of course that might all go to pot on the weekend as you find yourself in one venue glued to a band you’d completely overlooked, but hey, getting your prep in is loads of fun. Listen to two bands a day and you’ll be comfortably on top by the time the festival comes. Go on. Do it.

 

So, without further ado, here’s the first 50 bands playing this year’s SWN Festival…

 

Among Brothers

And So I Watch You From Afar

Apostles

Ashtray Navigations

Al Lewis

Barefoot Dance of the Sea

Battlekat

Ben Howard

Bejamin Francis Leftwich

Bleeding Heart Narrative

Chailo Sim

Colorama

Creatures of Love

Daughter

Dots.filmband

Eagulls

Echo Lake

Effort

Elephant

Elephant Stone

Gavin Osborn

Herman Dune

H Hawkline

Houdini Dax

Jen Jeniro

Joseph & David

Lets Buy Happiness

Mammal Club

Masters In France

Mowbird

Olympians

Pandas and People

Patterns

Rapids!

Red City Radio

Right Hand Left Hand

Samoans

Team Sports

The Cut Ups

The Fall

The Joy Formidable

The Victorian English Gentleman’s Club

The History of Apple Pie

The Keys

The Method

Theo

Town

Trwbador

Ultrahumanitarian

Zervas & Pepper

 

Pretty cool huh? Ok, so they’re not ALL new. THE FALL have been around for 35 years, but they’re ruddy legends, and we want as many people to see them as possible, young and old. You’ll know HERMAN DUNE too, and without doubt its been THE JOY FORMIDABLE’S year – so much so that we’re bringing them home to end their UK tour with their largest headline hometown show ever. Awesome.

 

And how much are tickets for this you’re thinking? £100ish? That would be good value wouldn’t it, for four days and 200 bands. NO YOU FOOL this is SWN and so tickets for the four days, which get you free priority access to all the shows (subject to capacity) are just £49.50.

 

For the moment they are only available from http://www.swnpresents.com – and they will roll out to more outlets over the coming weeks.

These are the advance prices. If there are tickets remaining then they will go up in price a week before the festival, so if you’re planning on coming please buy in advance, and preferably as early as possible to ensure you get a ticket.

The best value, and the most fun, is if you buy our most popular ticket which covers the whole festival :

SWN Festival 4-day Wristband : £49.50

But if you can only make some of the days you can buy individual day tickets :

SWN Festival Thursday Wristband : £10

SWN Festival Friday Wristband : £16

SWN Festival Saturday Wristband : £25

SWN Festival Sunday Wristband : £20

Wristbands grant you free priority access to all of the SWN Festival shows subject to capacity. Bascially, get a wristband and get around Cardiff to see as many shows as you can. We’ll publish a full timetable a month before the festival so you’ll have good time to make plans as to which venue you’ll need to be at and when to see the people you want to see. Just allow some time when you arrive to head to the wristband exchange to swap your ticket for your festival wristband.