Voxpop: reactions to Swn Festival 2013

Swn Festival finished on Monday with festival organisers declaring the event a “huge success”.

Taking place over four days in Cardiff, the festival saw a wide variety of local, national and international artists perform in venues across the city.

This year saw the festival expand, with more venues added and a number of fringe events taking place, including the music-centric Swn Bingo and the Swn Spotting treasure trail.

The festival also made two major introductions, adding an outdoor stage for the first time in the middle of the Hayes, and launching its own radio station in the build up to and during the festival.

To find out the highlights of the weekend alt.Cardiff hit the streets and spoke to some of those in attendance.

What did you think of this year’s festival?

Adam Whitmore, 27, Cardiff, volunteer coordinator:

“The festival’s a massive massive part of Cardiff, it’s really nice to be a part of it. There’ve been so many highlights, for me I’d definitely say working with some great volunteers, everyone gets on really well and puts on an amazing festival.”

John Page, 26, Penarth, plumber:

“I thought This is Wreckage were awesome. I haven’t had a lot of time to go and see bands recently but it’s been good having this weekend to go and see a whole load.”

John Walters, 34, Cardiff, digital media business development executive:

“Dan Betteridge is a massive talent, I could see him going on to really really big things. As always with Swn, having loads of people from Wales is fantastic, it’s absolutely amazing.”

Lisa Heledd Jones, 32, Cardiff, digital storytelling producer:

“I really love Jacob’s Market as a venue, it was really exciting to see that space and to see it partly as a gallery as well, but I do think it would have been good if some of the art had been about music and that would be really nice in the future if you could go there and the gallery be filled with stuff that ties in to the rest of the festival.”

James Holland-Thomas, 22, Cardiff, trainee engineer:

“Mr Scruff was so good, his set goes on for about five hours but it was just great from start to finish. I’ve really enjoyed listening to some bands that I didn’t know before as well, which is what Swn’s all about really.”

Michael Orton, 22, Cardiff, junior researcher:

“I’m not actually going to the whole festival, I just got a ticket for the Everything Everything show, so I guess it’d have to be them.”