This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Artist News Festival Line-Up Update Gigs & Festivals
Festival line-up update: Sŵn, British Summer Time, Sziget and more
By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 24 May 2013
Some festivals have bands. Some festivals have bands and other entertainment. And some festivals have The Gruffalo, JLS and The Beach Boys (or Mike Love’s Beach Boys sideshow, as you might call it). Barclaycard British Summer Time has The Gruffalo, JLS and The Beach Boys. And that’s a good thing.
Explains promoter AEG Live’s Rob Hallett: “Barclaycard Presents British Summer Time Hyde Park is much, much more than just a music event. I have always wanted to promote a show where you can take your kids and your parents. Junior can be enthralled with the Gruffalo and your daughter can scream at JLS while your parents dance around to The Beach Boys. Everyone’s happy!”
Yes, everyone. Everyone except you, apparently. Oh well.
In other festival news, Stephen Fry has been announced as the curator of this year’s Deloitte Ignite opera festival, which will take place at the Royal Opera House in London on 6-10 Sep, exploring the works of composers Verdi and Wagner, the latter of whom is celebrating his 200th birthday this year. Well, he would be if he wasn’t dead, but you can’t have everything, can you?
Royal Opera Director Kasper Holten told the BBC: “We are planning to celebrate two giants of European cultural history in a lot of different and unexpected ways that hopefully will be interesting and entertaining both for long-time opera lovers and people who have never yet been to the opera”.
Back to more contemporary music focussed festivals, and also announcing new intakes of bands (though not The Gruffalo) are ArcTangent, Bingley Music Live, the Ramsbottom Festival, Sŵn and Sziget. As you can see here:
ARCTANGENT, Fernhill Farm, Cheddar, Somerset, 29-31 Aug: Amplifier, Public Service Broadcasting, Delta Sleep, Vessels, Nordic Giants, UpCDownC, Cleft, Fat Goth, Theo, Howard James Kenny, Charlie Barnes, Memory Of Elephants. arctangent.co.uk
BARCLAYCARD BRITISH SUMMER TIME, Hyde Park, London, 5 Jul – 14 Jul: JLS, The Beach Boys, The Saturdays, Paul Young. www.bst-hydepark.com
BINGLEY MUSIC LIVE, Myrtle Park, Bingley, 30 Aug – 1 Sep: Chic feat Nile Rodgers. www.bingleymusiclive.com
RAMSBOTTOM FESTIVAL, Ramsbottom Cricket Club, Ramsbottom, Lancashire, 13-15 Sep: The Futureheads, Richard Hawley, Sinead O’ Connor, The Beat, Junip, Public Service Broadcasting, The Unthanks, Moreland & Arbuckle. www.ramsbottomfestival.com
SŴN FESTIVAL, various venues, Cardiff, 17-20 Oct: Deerhunter. swnfest.com
SZIGET, Danube, Budapest, 7-12 Aug: Franz Ferdinand, Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds, !!!. www.sziget.hu