The 0161 Festival Returns To Manchester, UK Next Month

From the 14^th-17^th of June acts from across the world will gather at St Kentigern’s in Fallowfield, Manchester, UK. From punk to reggae, from ska to hiphop, from acoustic sets to walking tours of the city, the festival has something for everyone. There will be stalls selling a variety of merchandise, a fully licensed bar and food, all housed within an accessible building. Headliners include Oi Polloi, Neck, Stage Bottles, Russia’s Moscow Death Brigade and Basque outfit Habemus Papam. The 0161 Festival was founded in 2014 with the dual purpose of uniting people across the UK under the banner of antifascism and using music and art to highlight issues.  

Tickets can be purchased via the 0161 Festival‘s website here

You can read more about the 0161 Festival below

The 0161 Festival was founded in 2014 with the dual purpose of uniting people across the UK under the banner of antifascism and using music and art to highlight issues. The festival has grown each year and this year will be the biggest yet. It is organised by a committee of volunteers, run as a collective with the aim of raising funds for anti-fascist and anti-racist activities both in the UK and abroad. The organisers combine the annual festival with community outreach projects throughout the year and they have released this quote about this years festival.

We established ourselves as a music festival, but we want to be more than that. Our aim is to establish ourselves as a festival of arts and culture – one that encourages education and engagement with local communities at a grassroots level. In terms of the festival, 2017 was the most well attended yet, with over 300 people enjoying bands and artists playing exclusive UK gigs from various countries across Europe and America. The event is a cultural enriching experience that highlights the injustice that people face around the world. As the festival has grown in size and stature over the last 4 years, we have realised just how important it is to continue this trend of bringing people together from all over and celebrating diversity and anti-fascism together. We began the festival in 2014 with the aim of bringing all different styles of music and people from different cultural backgrounds together to show that no matter what music you like, what you are into, where you are from, we are all united under the banner of anti-racism and anti-fascism. We have researched examples of European counter-culture in Germany and Poland, for example, and our aim is to use this model as an example of good practice for generating the same counter-culture in the UK. This means that we want to host the annual festival, the radical walking tours throughout the year, and regular community outreach. Encouraging people to become involved in assisting at cultural events and radical protests throughout the year. Being visible on the streets regularly, we hope, will begin to establish the roots of this culture – not being attached to a certain style of music/art, but in fact being associated with a wide range of cultural education, will hopefully generate a wider and more accommodating audience. It’s really important to us that we continue having the festival and we are growing every year, and bringing in more and more people as well as engaging more with local community and spreading the culture of anti-fascism.