Cardiff: Music is our DNA.
The Immersed! Festival returns with a bang on 30 January 2020 at the Tramshed, Cardiff. After last year’s triumphant event, headlined by Pete Doherty (the Libertines), we are excited to announce Richard Ashcroft, Tom Grennan and Bad Sounds as headliners to this incredible festival, all in aid of Teenage Cancer Trust.
Immersed! is a unique music festival that is curated, planned and executed by Popular and Commercial Music students at the University of South Wales. The students get to programme, promote and manage this event, as well as perform themselves alongside the best of upcoming Cardiff musical talent and established headline artists, while raising money for Teenage Cancer Trust.
The three spaces have an overall Cardiff theme, with each stage styled in homage to Cardiff life and culture. The main stage is transformed into the Dragon Room, the second stage becomes Womanby Street, and the final stage the Gwdihŵ Room, in tribute to Cardiff’s celebrated music venue that sadly closed its doors last year.
Running alongside the festival are the daytime educational Immersed! Conference and Symposium organised in collaboration with the Music Managers Forum and USW Popular Music Professor Paul Carr. The Immersed! Conference presents three showcases about creating, collaborating and completing music. These are not lectures, but audience participant exhibitions from industry professionals that get straight to the heart of music-making in 2020.
Featuring a range of expert speakers, the Symposium looks into popular music education in Wales and the challenges this small but talented country faces. Wales has a unique landscape culturally, politically, linguistically and of course musically, and our panels will be discussing how popular music education can ensure this country fulfils it’s potential as a musical powerhouse.
Immerse yourself in three performance spaces, 27 bands and artists, all in one location – curated, planned and executed in conjunction with the University of South Wales.
Headlining the event is multi-platinum and Ivor Novello award-winning singer/songwriter and former Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft. His last performance in Cardiff was at The Motorpoint so this is an unmissable opportunity to see an intimate and unique performance from a true legend of music.
Tom Grennan rose to fame collaborating with Chase & Status on the mega hit All Goes Wrong and has since become notorious for his blistering song writing and onstage swagger. After last year’s sold out UK tour to promote his top five album Lighting Matches, this is a chance to catch one of UK music’s rising stars before he hits the arenas in his first live show of 2019.
Bad Sounds, mercurial pop alchemists and music press favourites, will be laying down some of the “hottest records in the world” (Annie Mac, Radio One) at Immersed! in support of their new collection Escaping From A Violent Time, released only a matter of days before the event.
These three amazing artists will be supported by Year of the Dog, Rosehip Teahouse, Clwb Fuzz, Bloom! and Nightlives, all curated by Minty’s Cardiff Gig Guide.
On the second stage, we will be showcasing Cardiff’s dazzling array of talent – Welsh Music Prize winners Adwaith, guitar terrorists Al Moses and Bandicoot plus a supporting cast of genre defying acts – French Alps Tiger, Versify, Shlug, Blackelvis, Church Place, Dan Ham and Suleiman Atta. The evening’s proceedings are capped off with a DJ set from local hero and Jools Holland favourite, Boy Azooga.
The final stage features Sonny Winnebago, Mari Mathias, Yasmine and the Euphoria, plus solo performances from Philip and the Reindeer, Carlen, Otto, Foxxglove and Elina Lee.
The Immersed! Festival on 30 January 2020 at the Cardiff Tramshed 12pm –11.30pm
- Tickets thereafter £30 (students £20), available now from:
- www.immersedfestival.co.uk
- https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/immersed-2020-tickets-82862276299
