I've always been in bands and I put my first gig on when I was in college. We booked a local village hall, borrowed the gear we could get our hands on and rented the rest. It was a huge success - I think the entire year group had tickets - or at least the grungey half who liked bands more than football.  

 

For the last 8 years I've played outrageous guitar riffs and danced badly at a number of amazing places with 1 in Five. We've continued to put our own own shows on along the way, and in 2017 we ambitiously held the 1st Off The Record Independent Music Festival featuring 11 bands - somehow we got away with it!

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Our aim was always to break the mould with a huge event and encourage fans and friends of bands to experience more of the independent music scene in the city, immerse themselves in it, and discover new bands to follow and support.

 

The intention was (and still is) to put together a lineup that mixes up brand new bands and established local acts. We try to put it together in such a way that if you like your mates band you'll probably at least like the one before and the one after - and hopefully all the others too.

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By the 2nd year it felt like we had a better idea of what we were doing and we held a sellout show. Naturally we decided to push the boat out again in 2019 and introduced a 2nd stage curated by our friends at The Premium Blend Radio Show. We now had 22 acts in total, including 2 playing completely unplugged in the bar!

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With some light shining through now after the craziness that was 2020, this year is all about welcoming back live music with another HUGE day filled with great bands across all sorts of genres! We've got over 20 slots again and we've actually named the stages for the first time which is pretty exciting - I'll be curating The Needle Drop while Stuart looks after The Stylus Stage downstairs. 

 

We also listened to your feedback and introduced a new ticket tier for Under 16s (daytime only), as well as keeping the popular group ticket option (all tickets here).

 

AND I'm particularly excited to say that we finally have an official ROAD CREW here to support fans and bands throughout the day. This has historically been a bit of a lucky dip with some of my very good mates helping out when I realised I couldn't introduce acts, do the door, play a set, and get all the set changeovers organized by myself! 

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2021 really is is shaping up to being our best year yet and I'm looking forward to seeing you there so we can WELCOME BACK LIVE MUSIC!!