Hard Working Class Heroes today unveiled 100+ artists who will play the festival’s 12th year in Dublin from Thursday October 2nd – Sunday October 4th. This year the festival is sponsored by HMV Ireland and as is now established will feature a conference taking in mentoring, panels, advice and involvement from the tech space.
500 bands applied for the festival this year and they were judged by music people at home and abroad (including me).
Here is the list of bands that will play this year. Deeper delving into the lineup will commence here in September.
The bands
A Lazarus Soul
Acrobat
Affleck
Arborist
Atriums
Benihana
Benny smiles
Brian Casey
Buffalo Sunn
Buffalo Woman
Carriages
Carried By Waves
Cfit
Ciaran Lavery
Cloud Castle Lake
Clu
Codai
Color Sound
Columbia Mills
Conor Walsh
Contour
Deaf Joe
Dear Desert
Death In The Sickroom
Dogs
Dott
DVO Marvell
Eamon bode
Elaine Mai
Elastic Sleep
Elephant
Eoin Dolan
Fallen Rule
Floor Staff
Florence Olivier
Frankenstein Bolts
Galants
Ghost Estates
God Knows + mynameisjOhn
Grim
Hags
Hare Squead
Hauer
Hawk
His New Atlas
Hugh Hick
I have a tribe
I’m Your Vinyl
Imploded View
Jet Setter
Kobina
Kormac
little xs for eyes
Liza Flume
Low Sea
Maija Sofia
Maud in Cahoots
Me & My Dog
Me Auld Flower
Meltybrains?
Mere Moths
MKAI
moossmann
Myles Manley
Neon Atlas
Old Hannah
Otherkin
Paddy Hanna
Participant
Planet Parade
Princess
Red Queen Contest
Replete
Satori Je
Silences
Sisters
Skelocrats
Sleep Mc Evox
Somerville
Spies
Subplots
Tell No Foxx
The Academic
The Bedroom
The Black Sea Fleet
The Boxing Plot
The Clameens
The Debutantes
The Hard Ground
The Late David Turpin
The Loafing Heroes
The Magpies
The Pale
The Run Ons
The Shaker Hymn
The Statics
The Vincent(s)
Tino Ras
Val Normal
Vann Music
Voids
Walpurgis Family
Wild Promises
Yes Cadets
Venues
The Button Factory, The Workmans Club, The Mercantile, The Twisted Pepper, Bad Bobs, The Grand Social, Meeting House Square.
Tickets
Weekend Tickets €45 + fees, Nightly Tickets €20
http://entertainment.ie/hwch14.
HWCH is also supported by The Arts Council, Failte Ireland, Enterprise Ireland and the NDRC.
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.
Isn’t the so called “Hard working class Heroes” festival the same festival that every year asks bands to pay them ten euros just to look at their application to the Festival. with 500 bands applying thats 5000 euros. Now the venues rental is an average of 300 euros per night at a total of 6,300 for three days. Wow, they have nearly covered the cost of the festival with just the application fees. throw another 2000 grand into promotion and posters…. oh wait you have 100+ artists who will do all that promotion for you, but just to be safe lets say our new total is 8,300. Not bad, and we haven’t even sold any tickets yet. But just to be sure lets add on another 7 grand for techies and ticket collectors 15,300 total costs for the festival. (we’ll deal with possible organizer fees later.)
Alright. now lets consider tickets sales. 300 in the workmans, 550 in the button factory, 300 in the grand social at a minimum, lets just say and average of 300 per venue. 300 times 7 equals 2100 possible tickets sales. 21,00x 45euros is 94,500euros. thats gonna get eaten by taxes so lets average that down to somewhere closer to 60 grand after taxes. But then we must consider the funding of the arts council =2000 euros, and HWCH sponsors which puts us probably right back up their around 100 grand or at least you would hope considering all the promotion HMV and Failte Ireland=8,000, (unfortunatly enterprise ireland and HMV’s sponsorship, funds are not made public that i could see nor was NDRC,) Enterprise Ireland and the NDRC are going to receive.. But even if the founders kept the sponsorship money for themselves and gave none of it to the artists, there is still somewhere around 60 grand to pay the artist after expenses. thats 576.92 euros per band, given that there is 104 bands playing. Nialler9, could you please call up a few bands and see how much they are getting paid? because the bands i know who are playing are getting royally fucked once again by festival organizers! this trend has to stop!
In talking to the festival organisers before, you’re way off the mark in terms of the reality of running this showcase festival.
HWCH don’t get anything from the arts council for HWCH or the NDRC. It’s a partnership. Nor do they get anything from Enterprise Ireland to fund the festival.
They charged €10 for registration to pay for their breakingtunes platform after their funding was cut. Now they have a platform for the festival which serves as a showcase website for artists beyond HWCH. They don’t charge for registration anymore as a result.
Your numbers are way off. it’s €45 for a weekend ticket only. They don’t get near 21,000 people buying tickets.
The bands are getting expenses this year as far as I know that’s down to HMV. It’s a showcase festival – the goal is to put bands in front of industry which HWCH bring over – it works to that effect. That’s the value of it. It’s not a regular gig. There is also the convention where bands learn about what they can do in the industry if they’re trying to make a career out of it. I think most bands who apply for this know that. HWCH are not there to make a profit.
If you go to the arts council website you will find that they do indeed get 2000 euros from them, as well as 8,000 from failte Ireland. I never said 21000 i said 2,100. Even if they did drop the 10euro application fee that only lowers their budget by 5000euros still leaving them with a massive intake. A bit more investigation and you will find that most bands are not getting anything. “Showcase” is a joke, if they really want to showcase something, then turn over your books and showcase what it is like to run a legitimate festival where the money goes to the artist. Im sorry but, i think music journalist should stop covering festivals that year after year screw the artist, and in this case accept money from government agencies on the premise that they are helping irish artists. All they are showcasing is how to take advantage of musicians.
thought this was fitting!