Over 100 Artists Drop Off The Great Escape Festival Over Barclays Partnership
For nearly 20 years, the UK’s Great Escape festival has served as a kind of mini-SXSW. Once a year, a great many acts descend upon the seaside city of Brighton, playing venues all over town. But as with the actual SXSW, a number of artists are pull out of this year’s Great Escape, citing the festival’s ties to warmongering interests. In this case, it’s festival sponsor Barclays, which has invested gigantic sums of money in companies that are selling arms and military technology to Israel, thus helping fund the country’s campaign of genocide in Gaza.
Plenty of artists are still booked for this year’s Great Escape, which is set to go down next month in Brighton. The bill includes artists like Faye Webster, Lauren Mayberry, Fabiana Palladino, Kneecap, the Dare, gglum, Frost Children, King Hannah, O., Sinkane, Bnny, Cut Worms, Big Sleep, Faux Real, Slow Fiction, and Winona Forever, among many others. But I wouldn’t be surprised if some or all of those acts join the growing number of festival dropouts.
Last week, an online petition demanded that the Great Escape drop Barclays as a sponsor: “A bank that is involved in Israel’s genocide has no place at The Great Escape, which is a fixture of the independent music scene and has a prized place in the industry. We refuse to let music be used to whitewash human rights violations. We cannot let our creative outputs become smokescreens behind which money is pumped into murdering Palestinians.” Since then, hundreds of artists have signed the petition. Some of them — including Kneecap, gglum, Big Sleep, and Winona Forever — are still booked for this year’s festival. Others are dropping out of the fest.
https://twitter.com/M_cramps/status/1780583209773797401
Bristol’s own Menstrual Cramps have been pushing the petition, and they’re one of the groups that’s pulled out of performing. Tom Rassmussen, Orchards, and the labels Alcopop! Records and Big Scary Monsters have also joined the exodus. This morning, mui zyu became the latest artist to pull out. They write:
I will not be performing at @greatescapefest next month. The festival is sponsored by Barclays who are on the BDS Movement’s boycott list as they profit from the genocide in Palestine. Despite the festival being asked by many artists to drop Barclays – they haven’t officially commented any plans to do so.
UPDATE: Over 100 acts have now dropped off.
