The fourth annual Great Escape conference event and music festival, held from May 14-16 2009, saw Brighton truly rocking, as 15,000 music industry professionals and fans descended on the south coast to witness a whopping 400 of the newest and most exciting bands around doing their thing at over 34 venues spread across the city.

“Visitors flocked to Brighton & Hove over the weekend, filling up the city's 10,000+ bedspaces. The city's bars, pubs, clubs and venues were packed out too with people enjoying themselves in the UK's best city by the sea."
Visit Brighton’s John Carmichael

Top moments were many, and at the veritable smorgasbord of musical delights that is The Great Escape, no two experiences are ever the same.  Highlights included local bands The Pipettes, The Maccabees and British Sea Power playing triumphant home town sets, plus Kissy Sell Out’s rock n rave at Red Stripe’s Concorde 2, Miccachu And The Shapes’ frenetic art pop, Fan Death’s synth-stirrings, The New Wine’s psychedelic wig-outs at Gaymers’ Hector’s House venue, The Vivian Girls’ heads-down rock ‘n’ roll, Hockey’s indie-cool and Noah & The Whale’s folkish charm.  Big hitters waded in with Evan Dando’s solo set at Topman CTRL’s Digital, Gang of Four’s incendiary guitar salvos on the MOJO stage, The Charlatans’ crowd-pleasing, hit packed show as part of the Road to V activity and Kasabian, giving it the stadium-sized bombast in the relatively intimate surrounds of the Brighton Dome hosted by NME. Music fans were also treated to a series of off the cuff Relentless Street Gigs and several surprise guests climaxing with a road-block appearance from Baby Shambles.

Over 100 high-profile speakers gave 3000 Music Industry delegates some real food for thought during the event’s 3-day programme at the Thistle Hotel, with key note speeches from Spotify’s Daniel Ek who outlined future plans for the paradigm shifting music platform, John Leckie who gave some insight into India’s music scene and his Soundpad project in conjunction with The British Council. Colin Greenwood, Alexis Petridis, Paul Morley and Simon Armitage introduced bi-annual tome ‘Loops’ and Nathan Lovejoy from Limewire was interviewed by industry legend Jeremy Silver. 

Other conference highlights included panels and speeches from head of UK Music Feargal Sharkey, Will Page from PRS for Music, Big Champagne’s Eric Garland, Google / You Tube’s Patrick Walker, Music Ally who put the music industry on trial, Bristol Music Foundation who held their own mini-conference within a conference with Korda Marshall and Chris Morrison discussing past, present and future industry models and Chief Inspector Adrian Stubbs of Met Police, Clubs and Vice Unit who spoke in defence of the controversial Form 696. There was also a plethora of formal and informal networking opportunities for delegates to open up new dialogue and cement existing relationships

The Artist Village, the festival’s newest arena and official back stage, held in the Parlure Spiegeltent played host to 2000 additional delegates and was the focus for artists and new entrants to the music industry to meet, network and learn with a schedule of educational panels, workshops and networking sessions kicked off by renowned Industry news service CMU Daily, plus the world-famous venue played host to some sublime musical treats from the likes of Ben Kweller, Marina & the Diamond and FlyTV In The Courtyard sessions.

The Great Escape’s partnership with Phase Five NZ Music saw some of New Zealand’s freshest acts basking in the limelight and culminated with a show (and heart) stopping Powhiri (Traditional NZ dance) performed at the Thistle Hotel in front of the event’s co-founder Martin Elbourne.  Extending the festival’s international flavour there were showcases from across the globe with Canadian Blast, India Soundpad, and acts from Australia, Japan, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Italy, France, Belgium, Holland and Ireland plus many more..

So if you missed this year's Great Escape and are just begining to realise what a mega event it is get yourself organised for next year - the dates for next year’s event are Thursday 13th May – Saturday 15th May 2010 and Early Bird Festival and Conference tickets are now on sale through www.escapegreat.com