Over a quarter of the lineup at 2024’s festival boycotted the festival due to the sponsor’s ties to Israel’s war on Gaza.
As previously reported, solidarity groups including The Palestine Solidarity Campaign UK and How To Catch A Pig highlighted the festival’s sponsor Barclay’s Bank and its ongoing investment in companies selling arms and military equipment to Israel that have been used in the oppression of Palestinians in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Over 130 artists ended up cancelling in May, including Irish acts Anna Mieke, Rachael Lavelle, Sarah Crean and Cherym.
The news that Barclay’s would no longer sponsor the festival in 2025 was confirmed from the Boycott Barclay’s account.
CONFIRMED: Barclays is not a partner of The Great Escape 2025! BOYCOTTS WORK! After hundreds of artists and music industry professionals took collective action in solidarity with Palestine this year, Barclays are no longer in any way affiliated with The Great Escape Festival!
The BDS movement uses strategic, targeted boycotts to disrupt the flow of financial support to the Israeli military — and this is yet more evidence of how this strategy works. Artists who are offered bookings for TGE 2025 can accept them in the knowledge that their music will not be used as a smokescreen for a company bankrolling genocide.
HOWEVER: The status of Barclays’ partnership with other festivals is unclear. A year into the genocide, as the IDF now extends its barbaric violence into Lebanon, all artists must redouble our collective commitment to making sure the music industry isn’t sanitising the reputation of a bank that is STILL funding weapons companies supplying the IDF.
Booking for next year’s festival season is very much underway, so we are launching a Bands Boycott Barclays PLEDGE for artists and industry professionals to take.
The pledge is a commitment to ask, at the point of booking, whether the festival you are being booked for has any affiliation to Barclays. If so, it is your duty to decline.
Our collective action successfully forced Barclays out of the festival circuit in 2024. With more coordinated action, we can force this genocidal bank, which is funding weapons companies supplying the IDF, out of the music industry entirely — in doing so, we can put even more pressure on them to divest from genocide.
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005 . He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Cara Magazine, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, founder of Lumo Club, club promoter, event curator and producer of gigs, listening parties & events in Dublin.
