HMV signs media partners for music festival
Time Out and Xfm have signed up to be media partners for HMV and Mama Group’s Next Best Thing festival, which will be headlined by chart artist Paloma Faith.
Next Best Thing is a new music festival from HMV and Mama Group designed to showcase breakthrough music talent.The festival will run from 5 – 14 February and see more than 60 up and coming artists from different genres perform. There will be 25 gigs held in five venues over the ten nights.
As well as Paloma Faith, BBC Sounds of 2010 poll winner Ellie Goulding, and runners up, Marina and the Diamonds, will also perform. Tickets cost £10.
HMV says the aim of Next Big Thing is to showcase the best new talent from the UK, Ireland and around the world through an annual, multi-venue festival, giving music fans an early and affordable opportunity at the start of each new year to catch some of the hottest acts tipped for breakthrough success.
The festival is currently London-based but HMV and Mama aim to develop it into a nationwide event in time.
Head of hmvlive, Jason Legg, says: “We’ve had the most amazing response from across the music community – labels, managers, agents and, of course, from the artists themselves, and now we’re seeing a great reaction from music fans, who are snapping up tickets fast.
“We’ve felt for a while that there is space for a different kind of music festival – one that not only showcases the best of new and breakthrough talent at the start of each new year, when interest is at its height, but which also shines a spotlight on what’s going on with different music scenes right now – whether we’re talking indie rock and pop or folk and hip hop.”
Clare Lusher, head of marketing at Mama’s live division, adds: “We’re delighted to be working with HMV to help raise the profile of these new artists and to introduce them to new and bigger audiences. We hope this event will prove a stepping-stone for quite a few of these acts, many of whom will go on to perform in front of 40,000 plus crowds at Lovebox and Global Gathering and other festivals this summer.
“The response we’re seeing from artists and fans alike underlines our belief that the Next Big Thing has the potential to become established as a much-anticipated annual fixture in the music industry calendar.”
HMV is currently the frontrunner to take control of Mama Group, after rival bidder SMS Finance, pulled out of the race. Last year, HMV and Mama formed a joint venture, which owns 11 music venues and an interest in events such as London’s Lovebox festival.
