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  Association of Independent Festivals have teamed up with Social Music Marketing™ platform Sonicbids
• Partnership focused on placing grassroots acts in UK’s independent festivals  

18 July, London :- The Association of Independent Festivals and Sonicbids are partnering to launch Road to Independents, an initiative that links bookers from UK’s diverse independent festival market to emerging global acts. 

The initiative will give the international grassroots music scene a boost by forming connections between bands and AIF festivals through Sonicbids, an online platform that connects bands and promoters. Alongside the connections afforded to the festivals, Road to Independents will also offer funding to bring emerging talent to the festivals from all over the world.
  
Each festival member using the platform will have a listing created stating the slots they are interested in filling and style of music required. The listings are then left open for four to six weeks during which time band hopefuls can send in an Electronic Press Kit through Sonicbids, which includes band bios, recordings, photos and more for bookers to review and select acts. Funding is then offered from Sonicbids, enabling the festivals to bring either three UK acts or two international acts to the festival.

Based in Boston, USA, Sonicbids was launched in 2001 and has become a global marketing platform connecting more than 350,000 bands with 26,000 promoters from over 100 different countries. It is an online launching pad for many of today's emerging artists and has exclusive partnerships with taste-making events such as South By Southwest, The Great Escape and CMJ Music Marathon. The Sonicbids and AIF partnership is helping expand Sonicbids’ UK footprint through support of UK festivals and artists. 

This year the Road to Independents Initiative has 14 of AIF’s festival members signed up including Bestival, Bearded Theory, Leefest, Standon Calling, The Applecart and Underage Festival. This follows a successful 2011 trial that saw over 20 bands wowing select AIF festival audiences and a total of £25,000 in funding to festivals, including Bestival, Outside:Inside, Underage Festival.

Emmy Buckingham, Membership Manager, AIF said “The Road to Independents initiative is an exciting development amidst recent talk of a withering festival industry and ageing headline acts.”

Jack Hepplewhite, Director, Outside:Inside Festival said "Sonicbids enabled artists to link up and directly advertise their music to the outside:inside festival programmers, without the need for a music agent or even management. EVERY artist who sent us their music was listened to, and it was a pleasure to find the ones that we picked!"

Cara Kane, Bestival Coordinator, Bestival/Camp Bestival said “It was great fun going through the submissions of music from Sonicbids. There was a varied array of music to choose from and it was very easy to navigate the website.”

Capitals, (band that played Underage Festival through the initiative in 2011) stated “With it being our first gig in London, I think Underage festival served us really well as an introduction to new audiences which is something we aim to capitalise on… It was a pretty amazing day; beautiful weather, good music, appreciative crowd, great atmosphere. Since playing Underage the band have arranged some really exciting shows. We have a show in Berlin coming up soon, along with tours planned for both the UK and Europe for much of 2012.”   

Learn more at http://about.sonicbids.com/roadtoindependents or contact [email protected]

About AIF

The Association of Independent Festivals is a not for profit body set up in 2008 to represent independent music festivals in the UK and Ireland.
Conceived by Bestival promoter Rob da Bank and Graphite’s Ben Turner, the association’s founder members included Bestival, Cornbury Festival, Creamfields, Evolution Festival, Field Day/Underage, Secret Garden Party, Summer Sundae Weekender and WOMAD.
With 31 members ranging from Bromley’s Leefest to the 55,000 capacity Bestival in the Isle of Wight, AIF enables the promoters of some of the UK & Ireland’s most innovative and successful festivals to speak with one voice when addressing the wider music business and government.
AIF aims to establish best practice for festivals in a variety of areas such as security, the environment and beyond, providing a knowledge base for festival promoters, as well as creating collective purchasing and marketing opportunities for its members.
AIF operates as an autonomous division of the Association of Independent Music.