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Wales Online

Entertainment

John Jones

Sŵn Festival to return to Cardiff in full for first time in three years as first acts announced

Cardiff (Geopolitical Entity) Adam Williams

A city-wide music festival that champions up-and-coming artists is returning to Cardiff later this year. Sŵn Festival will return to the capital this October on a full scale for the first time since 2019, with events taking place at a number of venues across the city.

More than 120 artists will be involved in the festival, which will take place between October 21 and 23. The event has become one of the most eagerly awaited in the UK music calendar, as it aims to "celebrate the diverse, exciting nature of British music and beyond".

The festival's return caps a remarkable year for Welsh music. In April, Cardiff hosted this year's BBC 6Music Festival, with acts including Idles, Bloc Party and the legendary Manic Street Preachers all performing, while Dafydd Iwan's Yma O Hyd recently reached number one in the charts following a campaign by Welsh football fans.

The first batch of names for this year's festival have been announced with a vast range of genres represented, with everything from indie rock to punk and rap on offer. Nine popular venues are also being used for the festival, including Clwb Ifor Bach and Tramshed.

Clwb Ifor Bach and Sŵn Festival live manager Adam Williams shared his excitement at bringing the full-scale event back to Cardiff and said that he hoped the festival would showcase "future big festival headliners". Get the latest What's On News by signing up to our newsletters.

"I cannot stress how excited myself and the team at Clwb are that we are able to bring Sŵn Festival back in 2022 in its fullest form," said Adam. "We are incredibly pleased to share the first wave of the 2022 edition with you.

"Booking the line-up is always such a pleasure and we are still somehow amazed by how many new artists there are each year. It is a total struggle to get them all on the bill. How many bands is too many bands?

"The festival has always and will always showcase who we believe are the future big festival headliners both international and Welsh artists. This year, Cardiff centre will host over 120 artists across ninevenues. Expect new spaces, friendly faces and a whole lotta pink!"

The festival kicks off on October 21 at Tramshed, with American songwriter BC Camplight returning to Cardiff for their biggest headline show to date in the Welsh capital. They will be joined by Cardiff's own Panic Shack, who said they were "super excited" to be taking part.

"Sŵn holds a special place in our hearts, we were given a slot in 2019 when we were fresh out of the Shack womb, having only played a handful of shows," they said. "We played to a packed downstairs Clwb Ifor Bach and it blew us away, it still ranks highly on our ever growing fave moments list.

To be playing again this year, at Tramshed (!) with a set of more than just our 4 raw (questionable) songs and the couple of covers we started with is super exciting and we can’t wait to add it to the list.”

Carmarthen based indie rock group Adwaith (Bethan Miller)

Other Welsh artists playing at the festival include Aderyn, Sweet Baboo, Adwaith, Breichiau Hir, Lemfrek, Ogun and Plastic Estate. They will be joined by fellow local acts Yxngxr1, HMS Morris, Eädyth & Izzy Rabey and Mellt

There will also be appearances by London-based Cumbia pioneers Los Bitchos, Brighton’s Sea Power, Bristol’s Billy Nomates and American punk band Bodega. Other acts include Alabaster DePlume, Strawberry Guy, The Orielles, WH Lung, Wesley Gonzalez and West London rapper Jelani Blackman.

Early bird tickets for the festival have now sold out. However, weekend tickets are now on sale, and you can find more information here.

The full lineup is as follows: