Barfly are proud to announce the return of The Great Escape Festival which will bring the best of live music from across the World back to Brighton on the 17th 19th May 2007. 

Artist Submissions Now Open for 2007
For the second year running, The Great Escape has teamed up with Windows Live Spaces and this year are to  offering a unique registration process for bands wishing to submit unsolicited applications to perform at the Great Escape Festival 2007. 

The Windows Live Spaces mechanism is free for artists and enables them to register their details and maintain their Spaces profile for viewing by the public as well as The Great Escape Bookings Team.

For more details visit www.escapegreat.com or http://livesessions.spaces.live.com/

What happened last year?
In 2006, its debut year, the Great Escape Festival immediately became Europe’s best global export ready showcase festival. 

THE GREAT ESCAPE FESTIVAL 2006 IN NUMBERS:

• 20 venues
• 180+ of the hottest new artists
• 3 days and nights 
• 200 key media attended from the UK and around the world
• 650 international music industry professionals in attendance.
• 4500 music lovers
• The festival was SOLD OUT

The first Great Escape Festival was a rip roaring success, but how do you measure it?  One way is by taking a look at what just a few of the relatively unknown bands that were put on the bill by Martin Elbourne and the Barfly Team are doing now:

• The Fratellis debut album went to No 2 in September and is now platinum.
• The Kooks have now achieved over triple platinum sales in the UK
• The Feeling has now achieved platinum sales in the UK since TGE
• Paolo Nutini has now achieved platinum sales in the UK since TGE
• The Gossip Lead singer was named coolest person in the world by NME this year
• Guillemots received a Mercury Music Prize Nomination since TGE
• Richard Hawley – received a Mercury Music Prize Nomination since TGE
• The Klaxons have gone on to be NME darlings and will be headlining the NME Awards tour early next year

International acts like Metric (CAN), You Say Party We Say Die! (CAN), Holy Fuck (CAN), Disco Ensemble (FIN), Scissors for Lefty (USA) Tapes N Tapes (USA), Spleen United (DNK) and Howling Bells (AUS) all saw their UK profiles significantly enhanced following their Great Escape shows in 2006.

After a hard night of gigs and parties the world’s music industry took to the streets of Brighton, espresso in hand to attend talks and speed dating networking sessions.  Speakers included Michael Eavis (Glastonbury Festival), Laurence Bell (Domino), Tony Wadsworth (EMI), Peter Hook (New Order) and Rob da Bank (Radio1 / Sunday Best). 

The Great Escape Festival is unique in its International appeal.  Year one saw it become the key event for an export ready international act to showcase at, in order to grab the attention of the UK music industry and media.  It has also earned itself the reputation of being the best place to come and catch the UK’s ‘next big things’ just before they hit the big time.

2007’s Great Escape Festival plans to be bigger and better. 
With Brighton’s larger capacity venues on board for year two it will be possible to book even bigger bands than last year, enabling even more music fans to share in the experience.