The Great Escape gears up to launch its First Fifty on 14th November.

By Hard of Hearing on November 5, 2026

The festival’s lineup showcase arrives in East London next week, featuring Bathing Suits, casual smart, Spanish Horses and more.

Photo: Bathing Suits by Annabel Gzig

With this year’s festival season all but complete, already 2027 is calling. A tone-setting pillar of any year in music is The Great Escape, the Brighton multi-venue showcase festival oriented around platforming artists across genres touted as potentially the next big thing. In recent years, the festival’s ‘First Fifty’ – that is, the first fifty artists announced from a lineup which will swell to over four hundred names – has itself become a marker of serious credibility. Unveiled as a series of showcase gigs in London, the First Fifty has played host to significant ahead-of-the-curve shows from The Last Dinner Party, Keo, Picture Parlour and The New Eves.This year’s lineup looks to have similar potential and arrives in East London next Thursday (14^th November).

Among the shows announced are gigs led by some of the most impressive acts from last year’s festival, including Compost Compost Compost, who headline the Moth Club, Bathing Suits, who play to an already sold out Sebright Arms, and casual smart, who are at Folklore in Hoxton. Also catching our eye on the bill are heavy alt-rock trio Half Star, the electrifying Spanish Horses and exciting up-and-comer Tesni, who we loved at Sŵn Festival this year. London-based songwriter Shrink is garnering a lot of excitement right now and State of Grace is also one to watch. Their rough-edged set at Left of the Dial did not feel quite polished, but with extraordinary, PJ Harvey-like vocals and the involvement of Dan Carey among a talented backing band, they could well be building towards something special.