The Great Escape rolled back into Brighton this 13-16th of May, hauling a complete takeover of the city and its venues to celebrate the festival’s 20th Anniversary, showcasing the new generation of music.
Starting The Great Escape on Wednesday at The Hope and Ruin, housing two floors of live music: Love Thy Neighbour & Dusty Ginger Beer’s ‘No Friends In The Industry’ free-entry showcase at the ground-floor bar, and official The Great Escape shows by Platform B upstairs. Here, we catch Lonnie Gunn and her band performing new single ‘Good Girls Go to Heaven’ and unreleased track ‘Butterfly’ in an emotionally mesmerising experience. Lonnie mixes grunge rock and retro instrumentals to create her unique sound, which radiates in the intimate space, the crowd singing late birthday wishes to Lonnie, followed by friendly exchanges after the show.
Thursday gives us a tour of the seafront with female-fronted artists. Ticketmaster New Music Presents The Deep End stage at the beach site, where Lime Garden delivers sonically layered tracks and dynamic performances. Songs ‘Cross My Heart’ and ‘All Bad Parts’ get your body moving with the rhythm and the tambourine for a sublime performance.
Traversing to iconic queer venue Revenge, Jodie Bryant presents 5-piece Girl Group for Discover Live, filled out to transmit feminine waveforms through high-energy, feminist rock. No member is lost in the spotlight through their rotational dynamic on-stage, each track with a new front-woman for an unforgettable performance.
Ending the night at Waterbear Venue’s Clubliminal, launched by electronic duo Just For Fun for dance-heavy, dirty, sleazy beats to feel yourself. Lose yourself and get the “London look”. Forget Brighton, we want to go to ‘Paris’!
Friday, back at The Deep End presented by Billboard, to catch some of the biggest new artists. Slag kicked it off, dazzling the stage with powerful vocals and smooth but heavy instrumentals. The members’ close chemistry translated to the crowd, proven as guitarist Dan is absent to be best man at a wedding, but not forgotten, the crowd announcing “I love you, Dan!”
Followed straight after by the hard-hitting, charismatic Bleech 9:3, who dominated the stage with intoxicating, piercing riffs, the guitar as an extension of the artist. Heartfelt vocals leave an impact on new and old fans alike to make you cheer for an encore of “one more song!” Playing their first self-titled EP, highlights include ‘No Surprise’ for passionate instrumentals and ‘Cannonball’ for a slower, hypnotic sound.
In a quick stop to Concorde 2 for Working Men’s Club, catch limitless, funky, electronic beats accompanied by real-time computer-generated visuals to transcend addictive beats, keeping you moving on your feet in a lively, passionate, dancing crowd.
Keo came by to close off Billboard‘s stage with their smooth, guitar-heavy sound and tender vocals, commanding the stage with their presence to round off a trailblazing night of music.
As this year’s edition of The Great Escape comes to an end, it celebrates two decades of setting the global stage for new music. The festival is an amazing way to be introduced to and catch some of the most promising up-and-coming acts of 2026, who are worth keeping an eye on and watching flourish in the years to come.
Super Early Bird tickets for next year are already sold out, so catch your Early Bird tickets while you can for next year’s The Great Escape Festival, and say you saw them before they made it big.
