Southdowns Music Festival 2024 line-up

With the Regis Centre still closed, the 2024 Southdowns Music Festival once again finds itself adapting to changing times.

Transcript

00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Lovely to

00:06speak, as usual, at this time of year to Roger Nash, who is the Chairman of the South Towns

00:10Music Festival, which is coming to Bognor. And I said so much for the festival that you've

00:15survived Covid, and you're also surviving very well the absence for a second year of

00:19the Regis Centre, which has traditionally been your base. You've adapted to the challenge,

00:24haven't you? And you've got a great festival coming up, September 20th to the 22nd.

00:30That's right, thanks, Phil. Yeah, we've overcome a number of challenges.

00:36And yeah, 20th to 22nd of September, we've got Friday, we've got ukulele festival, dance

00:45programme, shanty showdown, craft marquees, craft markets, etc. And new for this year is the Rising

00:54Stars stage, which is being run for us by the Rocks organisation and by Athenia. And that's

01:00always been an interesting part of the festival, hasn't it? That you bring together lots of

01:04different bits, don't you? That's right, yeah. And the stage for that's going to be by the

01:10Provenard Bar on the closed seafront. The seafront will be closed between Florence Road and

01:16Lennox Street. There'll be other things on there besides the Rising Stars stage. We're using a

01:22number of outside venues, the Rafferty Club, Dog and Duck, the Benito Lounge, William Hardwick.

01:32And we are making sure that there's loads going on, shanty singing, etc.

01:40Obviously, in the past, when you've had the Ruger Centre available, you've had the big

01:43headline concerts, three big headline concerts. Talk me through what you're doing instead of that.

01:48We're having Friday and Saturday evening concerts under Marky on the

01:54Plastone Mall. And tickets for that are just £12 or £20 for both. And on the Friday evening,

02:02the headliner there is Banquet at Fred's House, support from the Nigger Stevens. On the Saturday,

02:07we have the headliner, Gerry Colvin and Friends, the support from the very talented Mark Harrison.

02:14Yeah. And you've seen Gerry quite recently, before?

02:18Yeah, Gerry saw the festival, and really is excellent. And I've seen Fred's House as well,

02:26and they're very, very good. So whoever comes to the festival, to the concerts, I'm sure you're

02:32going to be in for a real treat. Yeah. And how many years is it for

02:36the festival now? 12, 13, something like that? It started in 2013, so we're into our second decade.

02:44And you've really established it, haven't you? It's an important part of the calendar.

02:49Well, it's... What's happening around it?

02:52We have a very good committee, people doing different things, and they know what they're

02:55doing, and they specialise on those, and we bring it all together, you know, to make it the overall

03:01thing. So people learn from what they've done in the past. And that's why I believe that every

03:08festival we do tends to be better. And again, it depends on the weather to some extent, but

03:15the last few years we've been quite lucky with that. So we hope again that we'll see enough...

03:19So it's the South Downs Music Festival 2024, September the 20th to the 22nd,

03:27in lots of different places, and it's an exciting programme. Roger, good to speak to you. Thank you.

03:32Thank you very much.