Olivia PowellDIY Magazine has today announced the first DIYsolation Festival, a virtual event offering music fans the chance to engage with their favourite artists following the postponement or cancellation of many live events due to the Covid-19 outbreak.
The festival, will stream live on DIY’s Instagram channel over three days this Easter weekend, will feature live sets and activities from over 20 artists, including Pale Waves, Marika Hackman, Peace, Self Esteem, Creeper, Sports Team and Happyness. More acts will be announced in the days leading up to the festival.
Managing Editor of DIY, Sarah Jamieson, said: “We understand how important the connection between artist and fan is on any given day, let alone during these circumstances. With DIYsolation Festival we’re hoping to provide a welcome distraction for our readers and build a new kind of community right from their sofas. Many festivals and events might be on hold for now, but that doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate live music – this is just our way of doing just that.”
As well as offering fans the chance to connect with artists, DIYsolation Festival will be raising money by enabling donations to Help Musicians, a charity that has been supporting members of the music industry throughout the Covid-19 outbreak.
Help Musicians Fundraising Manager, Emma Jones, said: “Help Musicians is incredibly grateful to DIY for choosing to fundraise for us during this difficult time for the music community. DIY creators are innovative and adaptable by nature but the current climate poses unique challenges for even the most creative thinkers. During the Coronavirus crisis, we have seen music play a pivotal role in global morale and in our charity’s 100-year history, there has perhaps never been a more important time to ensure they have a way to continue.”
Rupert Vereker, CEO of DIY Music and Publisher of DIY Magazine, said: “We felt we should be supporting the thousands of music artists, that along with so many others, find themselves without the ability to earn at the moment and without whom there would be no future music industry. Help Musicians is a wonderful charity and it has seen the need for its support rise exponentially. It has had over 15,000 requests for help and it needs to raise whatever it can to help musicians survive. DIY always says ‘when you do it yourself, you don’t have to do it alone’. This has never been so important at this time”.
DIYsolation Festival comes following the success of DIYsolation, a streaming project launched following the current nationwide lockdown. The stream takes place on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays via Instagram Live. Previous shows have featured The Magic Gang, Whenyoung and Justin Vaccines, Mystery Jets and Baxter Dury. The programme has currently reached over 500,000 fans across DIY’s multiple channels, and DIYsolation Festival looks to add to this success.
The confirmed acts for the DIYsolation Festival are below:
Cavetown
Creeper
Happyness
Jerkcurb
Lucia & The Best Boys
Lynks Afrikka
Marika Hackman
Master Peace
Matt Maltese
Pale Waves
Peace
Peach Pit
Porridge Radio
Self Esteem
Sports Team
The Districts
Walt Disco
Whenyoung
Willie J Healey