Alt-fest announces bands for 2014

Alt-Fest – a brand new radical alternative music and lifestyle festival with a totally wicked edge, has been confirmed to take place on August 15th, 16th and 17th 2014 at a 50,000 capacity site in the South East of England, to be announced soon.  Yes you did read that right – at a time when most festivals are only jsut announcing their first few bands for 2013, Alt-Fest has already confirmed a number of bands for next year, 2014.

The organizers AC Promotions, a vibrant alternative clubbing and events company, who have been packing the crowds in at major nightspots across London for over 8 years (they run Club AntiChrist amongst other events), promise to curate a unique experience.

Alt-Fest will feature five live music stages, presenting crucial Goth, Metal and Industrial acts, plus the ‘best-of-the-next’ on a newcomers stage, and the absolute ‘best-of-the-best’ on a punter voted main stage line-up.

Alt-Fest will also present a massive clubbing marquee, to be hosted by a different ‘name’ event team each night, a circus big top, an alternative traders’ field, fairground rides and an artists’ village, showcasing installations, body art and sculptures taking shape over the weekend.

A large kids area, with crèche (rarely offered at mainstream festivals), will provide a dedicated area for festival going families throughout the five days of camping available.

What really sets Alt-Fest apart, however, is the innovative alternative means being employed to fund and determine the form of the festival. Alt-Fest will be the UK’s first ever crowd-funded festival, sourced and created by the crowd itself.

As well voting on acts to appear on the bill, festival-goers are stepping forward to volunteer the crowd-sourced resources, labour and finance that Alt-Fest requires to be a truly punter-powered event, where ticket-holders are fully invested in the decision making process.

As reported in the Guardian on 14th November 2012, more than 2.5 million people have helped to successfully back more than 30,000 creative projects on Kickstarter, since the site launched in America in April 2009. The site estimates that around 10% of the films accepted into the Sundance and Tribeca film festivals this year were funded by Kickstarter.

Crowd funding has already been adopted by a myriad of bands and artists to fund their albums, bypassing traditional record companies, whose A&R budgets have become ever more emaciated over the years, but this is the first festival ever to be backed in this way.

Following a summer which saw Sonisphere and The Big Chill pulled due to poor sales, scant attendance at Hard Rock Calling, even after a massive ticket price cut, plus ATP promotions going into liquidation, it seems the time is ripe for a revolution to be staged in the live arena.  The demand now being demonstrated at Alt-Fest’s fledging website confirms festival-goers are not only ready for an alternative, but are committed to creating it.

The support received in these early stages has already been sufficient to secure a 300 acre site, and to open talks with acts of a calibre that will make Alt-Fest a worthy competitor to established events – and this is only the start!  The first acts brought to the Alt-Fest bill with the help of people power will be announced in February, when a Kickstarter campaign launches, enabling punters to contribute to shaping the festival’s next big step forward.

Unlike any event before it, Alt-Fest is inviting the crowd to call the shots throughout the decision making process.  Fans fed up with bumped-up booking fees, food price-fixing and the same old acts offered by today’s festival ‘in-crowd’ can decide to complain – or to come on board with creating the real alternative.

The first bands announced are…

Fields of the Nephilim
Front 242
The March Violets
Diary of Dreams
Suicide Commando
NFD
Dope Stars Inc.
Eden House
Die So fluid
Pretentious Moi?
Inertia
Deviant UK
Uberbyte
Tenek
AlterRed
Generation Graveyard
Nullwhite

BIG TOP:
Circus of Horrors (Full/multiple showings)

www.alt-fest.com / www.facebook.com/AlternativeFest