Routes: A Brand New Guide to England’s Live Music Sector
To celebrate the WOMEX conference coming to the great city of Manchester on October 25th, 2024, British Underground, Arts Council England and Songlines Magazine publish Routes, a free 52-page printed guidebook highlighting England’s best festivals, venues and expos, with additional advice on artist mobility and funding plus insights from artists and industry insiders.
To get a copy of Routes, find British Underground at WOMEX at the England booth on the Horizons Stand.
Cover Artist: Arinjoy Sen
Aimed at UK and international music professionals, Routes will be launched at WOMEX and available at music conferences, showcases and festivals over the coming year.
In parallel, Songlines and the Horizons partnership will host Routes Online including festival and venue listings for England, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. For 11 years, the Horizons partners have joined together at WOMEX to ensure our grassroots musicians reach wider audiences by providing advice, funding, showcasing opportunities and assistance at the event.
“Making magazines and printed media is an incredibly important part of British Underground’s cultural heritage and as the organisation approaches 25 years of creative practice, it is great to keep this narrative alive through the collaborative publication of Routes,” says CEO Crispin Parry. “From screen-printed posters and comic books to hand-crafted zines, beautiful and useful printed materials are deep in the bone-marrow of BU and we will continue to create them as we approach our next chapters”.
Inspired by Manchester’s musical history and David Hockney’s British country landscapes, the Routes cover, created by Arinjoy Sen, captures “the richness of worldwide music and the carnivalesque of music festivals" through a “joyful, psychedelic burst of colour celebrating worldwide music and diverse communities”. The cover features an array of instruments, characters and people, “conceptualising the cover like a miniature painting, drawing the viewer's eyes to different moments across different parts of the image”, says Arinjoy.
The Routes directory also forms part of BU’s Good Showcasing Guide initiative which we are developing to support musicians and their industry networks as they embrace the increasingly challenging landscape of international music showcasing.
To get a copy of Routes, find British Underground at WOMEX at the England booth on the Horizons Stand.
The Horizons partnership is managed by British Underground on behalf of Arts Council England, Culture Ireland, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Creative Scotland, Wales Arts International, Arts Council of Wales and British Council.
