Sŵn for Beginners (and foreigners): An Introduction



Sŵn festival, now in its fourth year, is Cardiff’s answer to South By Southwest. Each year, Radio 1 DJ Huw Stephens and Cardiff promoter John Rostron team up to bring some of the best up and coming acts, as well as a few more established ones, to venues all over the Welsh capital – this year from 21st to 23rd October. But you already know that, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this, right?

As mentioned, Sŵn puts on some of the best up and coming bands from all over the world in multi-venue festival form. This year sees the likes of Egyptian Hip Hop, Happy Birthday, Spectrals, and Perfume Genius all making a visit. Great, right? But, again, you probably already know a fair amount about those bands, or at least can easily find stuff out through a quick Google.

The great thing about Sŵn is that they also try their damnedest to ensure that the local talent, of which there is plenty to choose from, also get their fair share of coverage. It is these bands that you, the anticipated target audience for this series of blog posts, presumably know the least about, and thus it is with the aim of acquainting you with some great local bands that these blog posts exist. Oh, and the venues. I’ll talk you through them, too.

Wristbands to this wonderful event are a mere £45 for the full 3 days. Think of all the bands you are seeing for this amount of money. A lot.

Keep an eye out for more posts with a day-to-day breakdown of local bands worth checking, plus a bit of info on the venues, shortly...

Oh, and by foreigners I, of course, refer to those folk travelling across the river from England.