A series of monthly showcase gigs exclusively featuring grassroots Kent-based artists and bands

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Pynch will play live on Thursday 31st of July

Where Else? a grassroots music venue and creative space in Margate, Kent has been awarded funds from Arts Council England to produce ‘The Kent Pop Exchange’, a programme of gigs, workshops, and events centred on platforming, developing and celebrating the emerging grassroots music culture in Kent.

After piloting the ‘Kent Pop Exchange’ in 2024 with a series of monthly showcase gigs exclusively featuring grassroots Kent-based artists and bands, the series will return in the Summer of 2025 with an expanded offering of events for Kent-based musos and creatives alike.

These include workshops, talks, and socials celebrating, empowering, and emboldening the young grassroots music community across Kent to create a more sustainable DIY music culture in the region.

The Kent Pop Exchange showcase gigs will also make a return, continuing to exclusively feature talent from Kent’s grassroots music scene. Local artists of any genre will be able to apply to take to the stage at Where Else? via an easy to complete open call out form, simplifying the gig booking process, removing many of the social, cultural, and technical barriers which especially new and young bands face when it comes to booking their own shows. Ticket prices will also be set at an affordable rate, ensuring that audiences from diverse economic backgrounds can access these shows.

New Kent Pop Exchange Logo created by Jordan Gray

Alongside these showcases, the 9-month long programme produced by Sammy Clarke (Where Else? ; Awkwardness Happening) & Jack Coleman (Tonetic Records ; The Big Cheese Co.) will feature workshops and talks led by trailblazing artists and industry leaders. These workshops will centre on music careers, sustainability and scene-building, not just for musicians, but for anyone interested in being a part of the grassroots music scene in Kent.

Thanks to the project’s public funding from Arts Council England, all KPX socials, workshops, and talks will be free to attend for those aged 16-30.

The Kent Pop Exchange was produced by the pair as a response to the difficulties faced by all emerging musicians and artists across the country and within the Kent county. The strain is being felt especially by young grassroots musicians during what is being called a ‘youth music crisis’ (Youth Music). This paired with the mass closure of grassroots music venues nationally (Music Venues Trust) has clearly demonstrated a need for developing self-sustaining and regionally focussed grassroots music communities, particularly in rural and semi-rural areas like Kent, building further on the work of local organisations like Pie Factory Music, with their Emerging Artist Programme, and Tonetic Records with their Tonetic Artist Programme.

By providing Kent’s young musicians a nurturing space and a platform for social, cultural and professional development, the Kent Pop Exchange looks to create resilience in the Kent grassroots music scene, through creating community and fostering a DIY mentality, basing itself out of one of Kent’s flagship independent music venues, Where Else?.

Commenting on the values and ethos underpinning ‘The Kent Pop Exchange’, Where Else’s Sammy Clarke has said: “Communities are fragile ecologies made up of passionate participants who each provide a unique skill set and perspective to the richness of an idea or belief.

In this instance, the idea is a self sustaining music scene and how behind any artist that you’ve ever heard of, whether that is Fugazi or Taylor Swift, there has been a small community of like minded musicians, creatives and workers that have fed into the terrarium of possibility to give these ideas life and therefore lift off.

“Beyond musicians these people can be photographers, writers, tour managers, sound engineers, recording engineers, hospitality staff, designers, artists, accountants, architects, publicists, publishers, record labels, textile workers, you name it. Nothing happens in isolation.

“I have heard it first hand that people start musical projects so that they might be able to play at their local music venue.

“I believe that I speak for everyone at Where Else? when I say I’m excited to be able to further realise our intention for opening this music venue in the first place; to feed into the fertile foundation that gives us vitality, resilience, hope, joy and the optimism to keep on going.”

The Kent Pop Exchange programme will expand Where Else? 's remit beyond featuring emerging talent to developing and sustaining it locally, cementing the venue’s place as a versatile and invaluable asset for the local creative community in Margate and Kent.

The Kent Pop Exchange launch event takes place at Where Else? on 31st July, which will kick off with a Music Scene Mixer at 6pm-8pm and then roll into a showcase gig at from 8pm-10pm, featuring amazing Thanet grown talents Pynch & debdepan.

The full programme will be announced in August.