Adelaide Guitar Festival presents Guitars in Bars 2017

Guitars in Bars - Adelaide Guitar Festival / Adelaide Festival CentreAfter a brilliant inaugural season in 2016, Guitars in Bars is back to brighten venues and public spaces around the state in July 2017 as part of MusicSA’s Umbrella: Winter City Sounds program.

Created as part of the biennial Adelaide Guitar Festival, Guitars in Bars is a stand-alone annual event, continuing both to celebrate the live music scene in the city, metro and regional areas, and to further develop and encourage relationships between local musicians and venues.

In 2017 Guitars in Bars will offer a matchmaking service for individual artists, groups and venues that are looking to organise gigs. Connecting venues and artists is an important part of this program and registrations for this service can also be made via the Guitars in Bars website.

Performances can be either free entry or ticketed at the venue’s discretion, with Adelaide Festival Centre supplying Guitars in Bars venue signage, an online/printed program of all events, and providing overall marketing support. 2016 saw the collective strumming of more than 277 events, at over 100 pubs, bars, clubs and live music venues.

“From The Gov and the Grace Emily to the Victor Harbor Hotel and Port Noarlunga Arts Centre, venues all over embraced Guitars in Bars last year and we could not have been more thrilled with artistic and public support,” said Adelaide Guitar Festival Artistic Director, Slava Grigoryan.

“As registrations for 2017 approach and in an alternating year from the Adelaide Guitar Festival, we’re more determined than ever to keep local venues full. We warmly encourage any public space with a live music licence to apply – the more creative, the better – and we’re here to help venues put it all together.’’

As an added incentive, Slava will select a local Guitars in Bars artist to open for a headliner of the next Adelaide Guitar Festival, to be held in August 2018.

“Our accreditation as a UNESCO Creative City of Music continues to hold strong through events such as Guitars in Bars, and it is a credit to Adelaide’s highly accomplished and eclectic musical scene that last year’s event was such a resounding success,” said Adelaide Festival Centre CEO and Artistic Director Douglas Gautier.

Umbrella: Winter City Sounds also runs from 14 – 30 July 2017, and offers city dwellers an exciting smorgasbord of curated live music projects to warm and illuminate the colder weeks.

Online venue registrations to host a guitar-based live music event will open on 10 April, and close on 14 May 2017. For more information, visit: www.guitarsinbars.com.au for details.

Image: courtesy of the Adelaide Guitar Festival / Adelaide Festival Centre