With the last venue door closed, the amps switched off and the streets of Brighton cleared of music lovers and industry insiders alike: The Great Escape is officially over for 2013 and has been said to be the festivals most successful year. Now in it’s eighth year the festival sold out for the first time ever, seeing 350+ of the most exciting new artists from 30+ countries performing to over 16,000 music fans, 3000 of these attending as festival delegates.
Once again, The Great Escape Convention 2013 provided festival delegates with unique insight into the past, present and future of the music industry. TGE13 delegates were on site to witness seminal events for the industry: From the launch of the game-changing Momentum Music Fund by PRS for Music foundation and Arts Council England to bright ideas first-hand from the likes of VEVO’s SVP International Nic Jones and Rough Trade mastermind Stephen Godfrey, to the YMCAs hosted by TGE Co-Founder Martin Elbourne, as well as the involvement of musical maestros Everything Everything and Billy Bragg who participated in panels at the convention and performed on TGE’s stages.
And then, there was the music: From that secret Palma Violets gig, to the utterly mesmerising performances by Polish pop royalty BRODKA, to Deap Vally and Parquet Courts bringing down houses all over town, to the now legendary sets from the new paradigms of rap Iggy Azalea & Brooke Candy, to Billy Bragg leading a sing-a-long of ‘A New England’ in the back of a tiny pub.
Kat Morris, festival director commented “A huge thank you to everyone who made TGE 2013 so brilliant, to all the incredible artists that played, to the panellists and keynote speakers who blew our delegates away, to every person that attended, our wonderful partners and our amazing production team. We are so excited to announce the dates for 2014 right off the back of this year’s festival and hope to see you there.”
However, if you missed those stand-out performances and panels, never fear as the TGE will be returning from May 8th-10th 2014 – so put that date in your diary now!
For more info about attending the festival, check out our guide to The Great Escape.
