Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard, Porij and Adwaith among the acts set to rock Swn this year
Over the years Sŵn has hosted the biggest names in contemporary Welsh music and this year is no different. Cardiff’s award-winning Sŵn Festival unveils the first batch of names for its 2024 edition. The multi-venue festival is taking place across the Welsh capital from Thursday 17 October to Saturday 19 October. This year’s iteration of the festival sees Sŵn become a proud partner of Cardiff Music City Festival: a three week-long celebration of innovative, accomplished music coming to the city, full of gigs, immersive happenings, residencies, installations, and pop-ups, pushing the boundaries of music, performance and tech.
The festival, founded by Huw Stephens in 2007, has been run by the team at Clwb Ifor Bach since 2018. While this year’s edition is suitably bulked out, with all three days featuring showcases at a plethora of venues across the city, what’s not changed is Sŵn’s dedication to nurturing a diverse range of the best local, national, and international talent and offering a platform to bigger and better things.
Sŵn’s dedication to showcasing local, grassroots talent will see the audience treated to the grisly garage-rock and pop sensibilities of Cardiff natives Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard, the Welsh-language indie-rockers Adwaith, the harmonic pop-rave sounds of fourth-fifths of Super Furry Animals, Das Koolies, and rising stars Half Happy who walk the line between heavy and heavenly.
This year will also shine a spotlight on Pys Melyn, whose laid-back melodies and wistful psychedelia earned them a Welsh Music Prize nomination, as well as Aberystwyth-born rockers Mellt and the alt-pop wonder Hana Lili whose landslide critical support led to supporting Coldplay and Tom Grennan.
Adding to the Welsh line-up already bursting at the seams, Wu-Lu, the Brixton-born punk, grunge and hip-hop artist, will be bringing his anarchic spirit to the streets of Cardiff, English Teacher’s emo-rock, dream-pop and psychedelia will grab you by the collar and demand your attention and the internet’s original pop princess and multidisciplinary artist, Hannah Diamond will be shining a lens on girlhood and stardom.
For the first time since before the pandemic, this year’s festival is multi-venue for all three days promising an even more stacked itinerary for the ravenous new music lover. On Thursday 17 October, Sŵn will take over Womanby Street with five stages at Clwb Ifor Bach, Tiny Rebel, The Moon and Fuel. Meanwhile, Friday 18 October and Saturday 19 October sees the festival expand outwards across Cardiff city centre, with extra stages added at Tramshed, Jacobs Antique Market, Cornerstone and Porter’s (Saturday-only), with more venues to be announced soon. Authoritative music publication DIY have joined the festival as a partner this year and will be taking over a stage and curating its line-up, with more exciting stage partners to be announced in the coming months.
Adam Williams, live manager at Sŵn, said: “I’m delighted to finally share the first wave of artists for Sŵn Festival 2024. This year’s event will be slightly different; running from Thursday through Saturday all three days will be fully multi venue, with over 130 artists performing across 11 different stages. We’re also in the process of finalising some exciting guests, stage partners and the return of our industry conference – details of which we’ll be able to share with you soon. Finally, and most importantly, this year’s event will be a key partner within the inaugural Cardiff Music City Festival; a three-week, city-wide celebration of music in Cardiff this Autumn.”
This year’s festival is geared towards being more accessible to the wider community than ever before, with the introduction of payment plans, concession tickets and more opportunities to get involved with the festival through the volunteer programme and a brand new apply to play scheme. Sign up to the mailing list to be notified about when applications open.
