Swindon Shuffle finds its headline sponsor with UKRI

This year's Swindon Shuffle will take place from Wednesday 11 September to Sunday 15 September.

This year the festival's headline sponsor will be Swindon-based UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

Once again the original music festival, which takes over venues throughout Old Town and the town centre, will be raising money for Prospect Hospice.

The Swindon Shuffle has been a fixture in the diaries of local music lovers for the last 17 years, celebrating all that is good about the Swindon music scene.

The 2024 event (the 17th edition technically as 2020’s festival was online) actually runs from Wednesday 11 September with an opening music quiz event at The Beehive.

But the real musical festivities start on the Thursday and run until the Sunday, with over 70 acts featured across five main venues (The Beehive, The Castle, The Hop, The Tuppenny and The Victoria) alongside fringe events at venues like Baristocats, The Eternal Optimist, the Eastcott Community Centre and more.

The Shuffle was conceived by a group of independent music promoters in 2007, inspired by established city festivals like The Camden Crawl, The Great Escape and the Oxford Punt.

Organiser Ed Dyer said: “We're really excited to be working with UKRI this year, who will be helping us to continue to raise money for Prospect Hospice and supporting the creativity of our local music scene.

"We have a really exciting programme of music in store, and this year we are doing as much as we can to highlight the wonderful musical talent on our doorstep, and help nurture the local scene and support local venues. As always we are indebted to our amazing acts, venues and sponsors for enabling this all to happen.”

UKRI is the largest public funder of research and innovation in the UK. They invest £8 billion of taxpayers’ money each year into research and innovation and the people who make it happen, working across a huge range of fields – from biodiversity conservation to quantum computing, and from space telescopes to innovative health care.

UKRI have a long history of supporting the arts and have supported projects like -

- Using AI to help trip-hop legends Massive Attack create digital instruments

- Developing immersive audio recording techniques at Real World Studios in Wiltshire

- Investigating how music can benefit people living with mental health issues

- Inventing a violin that can be played with only one hand

Christopher Smith, Executive Chair of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (part of UKRI), said: “We’re very excited to support the Shuffle festival. UKRI is one of the largest employers in Swindon, with our headquarters in Polaris House near the station, and many of our staff are musicians. Some are even in local bands that are hoping to be on the line-up when it’s announced! And of course, Prospect Hospice is close to the hearts of so many of us who live locally, so we are delighted that the event raises money for such an important cause.

“But those are not the only reasons we wanted to get involved. This is an opportunity to raise awareness of UKRI’s extensive support for research and innovation in the arts, from improving the design of traditional instruments to creating amazing ‘extended reality’ performances - technology is making a big difference to music and how people experience it.

“UKRI-funded research has also shown how inclusive access to cultural activities supports well-being and helps communities to flourish, which means it’s actually good for you to attend the Swindon Shuffle Festival!”

The organisers of the festival are still looking for further sponsors and will be creating a programme to be distributed across the area.

The line-up will be released in a couple of months' time and the organisers have revealed there will be a few surprises for this year to come.

All sessions are free entry with full details available at www.swindonshuffle.org.uk