About Us

The multi award winning GigsandFestivals.co.uk is an online live music publication that includes a vast variety of music news, live reviews, written interviews, video interviews, video sessions, tour documentaries, photo galleries, competitions and festival information. ‘Gigs and Festivals’ covers all genres of music, which caters to the eclectic and diverse music tastes of its readers, from upcoming artists, to the big names in music today. ‘Gigs and Festivals’ aims to keep every music lover up-to-date with the happenings of the current live music scene all year round.

‘Gigs and Festivals’ was launched online on the 2nd May 2011, by the sites founder Simon Robinson. Simon scouted over 150 writers and music photographers up and down the UK to join the team who share his passion and dedication for the live music scene. Which has enabled the online music publication to solidify its place within the online community by delivering the latest music news to its dedicated readers 24 hours a day.

What’s more, there is no big corporate engine here – just a small team with a love of live music and a desire to give you, the music lover, a comprehensive online live music publication full of interesting and unique content.

The History of GigsandFestivals.co.uk:

The sites founder, Simon Robinson, graduated university in 2011 and applied for jobs in music journalism and media. He was unsuccessful and found himself working part time in a discount store, feeling very deflated with the outcome of his employment Simon decided that he needed to look for other ways of making a career in music journalism.

Over the summer of 2010 he found summer work at music festivals, including Rockness, T in The Park and Kendal Calling, with Feststaff. During a break from his duties at Kendal Calling, sipping a cider and watching bands he thought about the idea of a live music publication. Realising that his true passion was for live music at gigs and festivals.

The idea of Gigs and Festivals was born on returning from the festival Simon registered the domain name http://www.gigsandfestivals.co.uk. He then spent the next 10 months researching online music publications and finding contacts for reliable live music news.

Simon also recruited over 150 photographers and writers for the publication and on the 2nd of May 2011 the site was launched online.

Working on Gigs and Festivals day and night for months Simon was starting to see all the hard work pay off as the site was receiving thousands of visitors daily. As the summer months of 2011 went by Simon attended a music festival every weekend interviewing bands and DJ’s from all genres of music. His writers were also photographing and reviewing their experiences. By the end of the summer of 2011 the hits to the website were crashing the server and this is when Simon realised that he must be doing something right.

Many companies in the music industry were noticing the publication and offers of investment were soon coming in. Declining the offers Simon decided to keep the publication independent and only chose to work with a limited number of commercial partners.

In October of 2011 Simon met with Muzu TV and a partnership was formed, this meant that his recorded video interviews weren’t just available via www.gigsandfestivals.co.uk but via Muzu.TV’s website, Xbox App and IPTV Television network via compatible Samsung and SONY televisions. The partnership also gave Gigs and Festivals access to content available via Muzu TV’s online partner websites including NME.com and 4Music.com.

In March 2012 Simon then decided to grow Gigs and Festivals and commissioned a brand new website with new features that helped the site to attract a larger audience, as the site was built with SEO in mind. Then Simon met Emma Baker whilst he was on tour with upcoming pop punk band, Room 94, filming a tour documentary. The couple fell in love and due to the rapid growth of the business Simon recruited Emma as his Personal Assistant in late 2012. Emma has brought a fresh approach to the business and since then Gigs and Festivals success has continued to flourish and increase its market share.

As of May 2013 the site is attracting a readership of 50,000 unique visitors per day. We are now being described in the industry as the fastest growing music website.

We often get told, by people in and out of the industry, that Gigs and Festivals has come along way in such a short amount of time; the truth is we’re just getting started...