When discussions first began about holding the BBC 6 Music Festival in Cardiff it was hoped the event might be able to leave a lasting impression on the city. Instead, Cardiff will leave a lasting impression on the festival.
The Welsh capital has ‘Music City’ status and that comes with some bold ambition, so when the idea of the festival’s first Fringe was raised, the city grasped a giant logistical challenge with both hands.
Today, the Fringe is 29 events across 12 venues with more than 150 Welsh artists performing.
Dave Ball, who works with Creative Wales, was one of the main facilitators in bringing the 6 Music festival to Cardiff and creating the Fringe.
We were keen to ensure the grassroots Welsh music scene was represented and they [6 Music] suggested we run a Fringe, which they would support but which would be totally owned and organised by our side. What we’ve ended up with is even bigger than I ever imagined but we’re immensely proud of it.
It has been a major undertaking. The 6 Music Festival began in 2014 in Manchester and has since been hosted by Newcastle, Bristol, Glasgow, Liverpool and London (there was no festival in 2018 or 2021).
The groundwork for the event started in the Autumn of 2021 when Ball and Cardiff Council first laid out to the BBC 6 Music team in Salford, Manchester, what they hoped to achieve.
The concept was to allow the grassroots venues in Cardiff to book their own shows, for the Cardiff team to provide Fringe branding and to host the entire thing on a webpage for tickets and advertising.
That approach allowed other events and ideas to bolt onto the main festival, such as Immersed, an annual festival run by the University of South Wales, which spotlights Welsh music and raises money for Teenage Cancer Trust.
Among the artists to benefit is four-piece indie rock band Basic State.
This video was created by Tane Rogers-Eirug, a student at the School of Journalism, Media and Culture.
They performed at Tramshed on Tuesday, March 29, as part of a USW showcase. The Cardiff band have released a few Eps to date and have been playing support slots in and around the city for the last two years. The size of the opportunity the Fringe provides is clearly is not lost on them. Front man Harvey Sivell told us during a rehearsal session in the lead up to their performance:
It’s huge really because we could actually get some coverage from playing what we love. With the BBC being national and international — hopefully it could give us a bit of a push.
For Dave Ball, what Harvey says above is a direct illustration of the wider goals of the Fringe:
Long term I’d love to see some of the amazing emerging artists on the Fringe earn opportunities to take the career onwards and upwards as a result of the extra exposure. We hope this helps anyone who was a bit reluctant to get back to gigs to go and enjoy a show at one of our grassroots venues.They’ve all been hit so hard through the past two years that to see them all close to full for the week would be hugely welcome.
To find out more about the Fringe festival this year check out the Immersed website or Minty’s Gig Guide.
