Alfie Templeman among over 100 acts to withdraw from The Great Escape
A day before The Great Escape festival is due to take place in Brighton on May 15th, over 100 artists have withdrawn from the lineup. Alfie Templeman along with various other prominent acts on the billing, such as Pop Vulture, Bug Teeth, and Opus Kink have joined the growing boycott against the festival, over the sponsorship it receives from Barclays, a major financier of the conflict in Gaza.
The boycott was first started by Bristolian punks The Menstrual Cramps along with promoters How to Catch a Pig, who called on The Great Escape to sever their ties with Barclays over the bank’s ties to supplying weapons to Israeli forces, thus supporting the attack of Palestinians in Gaza.
In the following weeks, hundreds of artists and notable figures within the music industry signed an open letter condemning the festival’s sponsors and calling for The Great Escape to speak out against Barclays. At the time of writing, the Brighton festival has not publicly acknowledged the controversy, or the reasons behind so many artists on the line-up withdrawing from the festival.
Since the initial calls for boycott by The Menstrual Cramps, 106 artists – making up around a quarter of the entire lineup – have pulled out of the festival. Speaking exclusively to Far Out last month, Menstrual Cramps lead singer Emilia Elfrida affirmed, “Music festivals can’t go ahead without musicians, and so musicians are the ones who have the power, even though a lot of time, it doesn’t feel like that”.
This latest group of artists to pull out of the festival includes, but is not limited to: Alfie Templeman, Delilah Bon, Pop Vulture, Hang Linton, Opus Kink, Soft Launch, Avije, Beetlebug. Among the 106 artists to have pulled out, record labels such as Come Play With Me, Alcopop and Big Scary Monsters have joined the boycott.
Explaining his decision to withdraw from The Great Escape, Templeman said on social media: “My morals cannot and will not align with the amalgamation of entertainment and human suffering. Solidarity to everyone else on the lineup that has dropped out and used their platform to direct attention to the boycott.”
Notably, many of the artists who signed that open letter condemning the festival, have yet to pull out of the lineup, such as Mary in the Junkyard or Wunderhose. Irish rap trio Kneecap – who were one of the leading artists to take part in the recent boycott of SXSW Festival in America – are also currently still due to perform at The Great Escape.
Aside from The Great Escape, Barclays is also a major sponsor of the Isle of Wight Festival, as well as Latitude. Various artists pulled out of Latitude last year as a result of the sponsorship, and there were also some small protests against Barclays on the Isle of Wight in 2023.
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