WE ARE SCIENTISTS & 65DAYSOFSTATIC announced as first headliners for Handmade Festival 2016: / April 29th – 1st May – O2 Academy Leicester

WE ARE SCIENTISTS & 65DAYSOFSTATIC announced as first headliners for Handmade Festival 2016: / April 29th - 1st May - O2 Academy Leicester 2

Handmade Festival will be returning to Leicester’s O2 Academy over May bank holiday weekend (29th April – 1st May 2016) for three days of the finest music, comedy, art, film, performance and photography, hand-picked and carefully curated.

As such, Handmade Festival are very excited to announce the first two headliners for the 2016 music programme:

WE ARE SCIENTISTS // 65DAYSOFSTATIC

Plus many more acts performing across multiple stages to be announced. Weekend tickets are on sale now for just £30 from http://www.handmadefestival.co.uk

HANDMADE FESTIVAL

ABOUT HANDMADE FESTIVAL:

Handmade is a multi-venue music and arts festival in the city of Leicester. It was originally imagined by John Helps (of Leicester based instrumental band Maybeshewill) as a way to bring exciting new and original music, comedy, art, film and photography in to the city centre over three days. Since then it has grown and is now programmed and run by John along with Nik Sharpe (The Cookie), Matt Kirk (Firebug), Andy Wright (The Charlotte) and a tonne of other awesome people across multiple artistic disciplines. Partnerships with Big Scary Monsters and Alcopop Records as well as the 2000 Trees and ArcTanGent Festivals have been a big part of the Handmade from day one, and it continues to involve curators from awesome musical organisations from across the country.

In its first year Handmade took over reclaimed spaces – including an ex-library, the city’s historic guildhall, a church and some of the oldest buildings in the city with headline sets from Rolo Tomasi, Nine Black Alps, Dutch Uncles and The Twilight Sad as well as festival curators Maybeshewill themselves.

For its sophomore year, the event grew to include the huge Hansom Hall theatre, with And So I Watch You From Afar, Shonen Knife, Dry the River and Iliketrains filling headline slots across the many venues.

2015 was another year for growth, necessitating a move to the city’s O2 Academy venue – with headline sets from Eagulls, Bo Bingen, TOY, Slaves and Future of the Left filling the spectacular Queens Hall, Scholar and multiple re-purposed spaces around the building, the event saw festival organisers vindicated – creating the perfect “DIY” festival within what would normally be considered a particularly “un DIY” venue. It was a different beast, but it was the perfect festival for the city.

Speaking about the festival co-organiser John Helps, said “That’s the beauty of Handmade – it is a DIY festival – created and curated with a real love and attention to detail. It has to beg, borrow and steal in order to exist, but consequently it’s been easy for the whole city’s creative community to get behind and drive it forward together. Without the care and support of so many volunteers and people with incredible imagination and ambition, it wouldn’t ever have existed – and it only continues to do so because of them.”

This year the festival is partnering up with old friends BIG SCARY MONSTERS and ALCOPOP records as well as new friends LAST.FM, to bring you another eclectic and vast line-up for the May bank holiday weekend. More acts to be announced soon.

Xsnoize Author
Mark Millar is the founder of XS Noize and looks after the daily running of the website as well as hosting interviews for the weekly XS Noize Podcast. Mark's favourite album is Achtung Baby by U2.

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*