“We’re probably contacted by a couple of thousand bands. “We are swamped with the amount of bands that want to play Swn,” he confesses. Surely a nightmare for the Swn festival organiser to pick and choose who plays? This year’s bill features around 180 bands playing at venues of varying sizes around Cardiff – a line-up that is an eclectic mix of homegrown sounds and those from further afield. The fact that we’ve got to five years means that we’ve achieved that here and we’re not going anywhere, anytime soon.” We wanted something that stayed and was sustainable. “There had been a series of events that came and went after a year, or two years. “When we set out one of the reasons why we wanted to do it was that things started and stopped all the time in Cardiff,” he continues. I can’t believe it’s five years actually, I’m like how did that happen? Somehow we got the first Swn together and over the years it has become firmly established and more people come every year, so we attract more attention. “We were there thinking that we should have something like this, albeit smaller and in Cardiff. “It’s a big multi-venue festival featuring hundreds of bands which is attended by thousands of people. “We were at the South By Southwest music festival in the US,” Rostron recalls. Now into its fifth year, it launched in 2007, Swn festival was co-founded by Rostron alongside BBC Radio One DJ Huw Stephens. This year’s event will be the largest and most ambitious yet – 180 bands and hundreds of music fans will converge on Cardiff for a four day festival that will once again throw the spotlight on emerging new music from Wales, the UK and abroad. “We’ve had a couple of line-up changes, a couple of withdrawals, but nothing we can’t handle,” smiles the co-founder of Wales’ biggest music festival Swn. We are a week away from the biggest date in the professional life of the music promoter and the nerves are kicking in. OUTWARDLY he doesn’t look unduly untroubled, but inside, John Rostron’s heart is beating just that little bit faster. Dave Owens talks to John Rostron – the man putting Wales on the musical map Cardiff comes alive next week as the city is submerged by the sounds of the Swn Festival.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |