Handmade Festival - bands announced for 2017
Festival announcement: Handmade Festival 2017
Festival dates: 29 - 30 April 2017
More info: Festival website
Handmade Festival will be returning to Leicester’s O2 Academy in 2017 for two days of the finest music, comedy, art, film, performance and photography, hand-picked and carefully curated. The festival will take place on 29th and 30th April 2017.
As such, Handmade Festival are very excited to announce the first wave of bands for the 2017 music programme:
Twin Atlantic, Frightened Rabbit, British Sea Power, Pulled Apart By Horses, Honeyblood, JAWS, Muncie Girls, Tigercub, Puppy and Idles
Plus many more acts performing across multiple stages to be announced. Weekend tickets are on sale.
Tickets start at £40 for adults and for the first time the festival is able to offer tickets at £30 for students and £20 for under 16s.
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.
2016 saw the festival's biggest and most adventurous year yet featuring bands such as We Are Scientists, 65daysofstatic, Lonely The Brave, Deaf Havana, Three Trapped Tigers and more. 2016 also saw the festival partner with Upset, Last.fm, Witchita Records and more to curate their estimable line-up, earning them plaudits from the likes of Drowned in Sound, Louder Than War, Q, Clash and various other areas of the press.
Speaking about the festival co-organiser John Helps, said "It feels so good to finally get this announcement out in to the world. Handmade has grown every year since we started it in 2013, but this feels like our biggest step to date as we move in to the main room of O2 Academy Leicester, as well as the many other spaces around the Academy and Attenborough Arts Centre. We could not be more excited about the line-up, and this is just a flavour of what you can expect across the two days."
This year the festival is partnering up with old friends Big Scary Monsters and Alcopop records as well as new friends at Upset, Dork, Drowned in Sound and more, to bring you another eclectic and vast line-up. More acts to be announced soon.