Brighton Poised for The Great Escape 2011

The Great Escape is one of the UK's leading music industry showcases, and it'll be opening up come Thursday to its very excited hometown of Brighton.

Boasting a line-up of some of the world's hottest up and coming talent, the festival features DJ Shadow, Sufjan Stevens and Friendly Fires as headliners, as well as a host of other highlights in a very busy couple of days for the south coast city.

I'll be covering the festival for Skiddle and providing reviews of some of the picks of the event, including performances from the likes of Anna Calvi, Yuck, Okkervil River, The Antlers to name a few. The festival is almost completely sold out with only a few full weekend tickets left to satisfy the enormous demand this year's event has attracted.

Established in 2006, The Great Escape has helped launch the careers of plenty of acts that are now household names, including Kate Nash, The Gossip and Laura Marling amongst countless others. 15,000 people are expected in Brighton over the coming weekend to taking their own journeys around the best 30 venues in the city, to bear witness to the works of over 300 bands. If you're headed to Brighton on Thursday, Friday or Saturday, we recommend signing up to text service by texting ESCAPE to 87085 – there's a one off charge of £1.50 but it will keep you in the loop of impromptu street gigs as well as secret gigs by some big name acts before they occur.

The Great Escape is about more than just great gigs. There'll also be industry talks on some of the major issues hanging over new music today, such as download culture and its impact on the music business, and what it takes to function in a working touring band. Andrew Dubber of Bandcamp, Simon Fox of HMV and Will Page of the PRS are among the highlights of the speakers set to take part.

So there you have it, stay tuned for more news from what promises to be, the greatest Great Escape yet, down by the seaside.

Words: Mark Booth