Brighton to host range of alternative and fundraising showcases over The Great Escape weekend

As well as being the site of The Great Escape 2024, over the next three days (Thursday 16th - Saturday 18th May), Brighton will also play host to over 50 unofficial or alternative showcases which are unaffiliated with the multi-venue festival, some of which will also be charity events featuring artists who are boycotting this year’s iteration.

Each year, venues in the city capitalise on the high concentration of artists in town by putting on gigs that don’t require a festival delegate wristband to attend, and which take place concurrent to The Great Escape’s official programme. This year, the likes of The New Eves, Tyler Cryde, Skydaddy, King Isis and many more will play events raising money for charities providing support to people in Palestine (instead of official events), after over 100 artists previously booked to play the festival have withdrawn due to its connections to Barclays.

The participation boycott comes in the wake of a petition - launched by The Menstrual Cramps and the publication How To Catch A Pig - began circulating online last month, which called for The Great Escape to drop Barclays as a partner as part of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign due to claims the festival has “financial ties to companies producing weapons and military technology used in Israel’s attacks on Palestinians”.

You can read more about the boycott, and find out more about some of the non festival-affiliated events going on in Brighton this weekend, below.