Why wait until the Summer for festivals – why indeed? Early February it is then!

With the success of our Ceremony event (entering into its 4th year in 2024), we didn’t really want to make you all wait until June for the next installment, so a plan was hatched….

Things can be a bit UK grim at the start of the year so what better way to counter this than a programmed event running across two stages in Esquires featuring some of the most talked about and exciting new music acts around, the date – Saturday 3rd February. Face it, we had you at the mere mention of Ceremony didn’t we?

Joining us as main stage headliners are English Teacher, a 4-piece who probably don’t need much introduction due to their autumn tour completely SELLING OUT after a run of three banging singles (on the label Nice Swan) that have been astride the airwaves for the last few months. Lily, Douglas, Nichloas and Lewis are creating quite a stir with their brooding, noirish post-punk tuneage. Fun fact – Doug is from round these here parts originally.

Also on the bill is grunge pop chameleon Viji (a.k.a Vanilla Jenner, singer-songwriter hailing from Austria) and her band of noiseniks. With an album just released on taste-making label Dirty Hit, expect lots of buzzy fuzz and sky-high choruses.

Whitelands are a shoegazing London 4-piece who construct layer upon layer of shimmering cacophonous soundwaves for your aural pleasure. Asked to describe themselves, they say “bedroom dreampop and shoegaze by Black dudes”.

Automotion are a London four-piece who espouse a mixture of influences scanning from Krautrock, Robert Fripp’s guitar playing and literary greats such as Burroughs. Half of the band have studied fine art and their music ebbs and flows as it snakes its way into your consciousness. Fun fact – apparently one of them has a dad with the initials LG.

Flat Party open proceedings on the main stage with their rickety, jerky indie-punk melodies and wriggly vocals. Sounding stably unstable they’ve got some absolute belting short-sharp-shock tuneage and featured a lot on Lamacq’s last few 6music shows.

The deliciousness also extends to Room2 with a line-up of Elijah Miller (Bedford singer-songwriter), Balter (teenage indie dreamers), Belonging (Solo sad pop jukebox) and About Bunny (hook laden indie pop riot) with one more act to be revealed.