London Popfest

There are thousands of festivals around the world and, y’know, fine, I’m not going to kick up a fuss about it – but indiepop fans around the world have been trying for years now to make their favourite music count in ways that the Glastonburies of the world will never know: a bunch of people getting together out of sheer enthusiasm to create an event that will make their friends go “yaaaay!” and travel miles and miles to be there and be part of something special, something as removed from the commercialism of mainstream festivals as anything could ever be. Jump around, make new friends, marvel at the spirit of indiepop shining bright forever.

Popfests came out of the Indiepop mailing list and you can find a short history of them here. They started as humble meet-ups for people on that list and grew to be much-anticipated events that popfans from all over put a lot of effort in. Things have changed, of course, and Popfests are no longer closely related to the Indiepop list but it’s still an important inspiration. For us the inspiration was a trip to the New York popfest in 2008, when after four days of unbelievable fun and warmth (in every sense) and joy, after a lot of drinks and on our way to a veggie dinner, we said it was time for London to raise its hand and say “Yay pop!”. A London Popfest almost happened in 2004 but since then there have been no talks about anything similar. We are lucky here because we’ve got the miracle that is Indietracks to keep us smiling, but a popfest is quite a different proposition – hence the unusual winter timing.

So here we are with our little London popfest at last: four days of running around this brilliant city celebrating these amazing times for indiepop with our friends. Roll on February! We can’t wait to meet you all.