Fat Tuesday Festival Returns with Anniversary Disc
Despite the rejection of Arts Council England support, Hastings Fat Tuesday CIC (HFT) have announced that next month’s festival can and will proceed, albeit on a reduced budget.
A successful crowdfunding campaign, which raised nearly £16,000, together with generous support from local businesses and the Community Wellbeing Fund of East Sussex County Council, has enabled HFT to promote the traditional Unplugged Saturday on 10 February and Tuesday Tour on the 13th. Thirty venues, 84 live acts and hundreds of musicians, engineers and local freelancers are scheduled to take part.
The full festival programme and line-up will be announced in the coming weeks. But along with the Unplugged Saturday and Tuesday Tour it is expected to include an opening party at the Albion, an ‘Under the Radar’ gig at the Piper, Sonics line-ups at the Pig, Slim Monday, the Reggae Room and an After Party. The restricted funds have meant that the UnConvention music conference, the Mardi Gras Ball and the annual Parade and Preservation Sunday will not be held this year.
New for 2024, the festival will also be hosting an official Hastings Fat Tuesday Fringe, with venues and organisers invited to list additional Mardi Gras activity on the main HFT website.
In the meantime, HFT director Sally Lampitt has also announced that, thanks to the support of Curve Pusher and Curve Pressings, a 15 Year Anniversary album has been released on vinyl with songs donated by 10 festival favourites, including Hot Wax, Kid Kapichi, Skinny Lister, King Size Slim, Matilda’s Scoundrels, Cajun Dawgs and Crunchy Bat, plus previously unreleased tracks by Buddha Triangle, Jamie Smart and Liane Carroll. The album is available to buy from the HFT website with proceeds channelled to direct support of this year’s festival.
Curve Pusher’s founder, Lawrie Dunster, says: ‘When I moved to Hastings I felt an instant connection that I can’t explain. We moved our entire business and our families here, and Hastings Fat Tuesday Music Festival was a big part of that.
“We make records. We recognise that Hastings Fat Tuesday has always supported the development of local artists, and I wanted to find a way to support the continuation of the festival and support the local scene. My idea was to give the local artists a platform on vinyl and donate all the records to funding for the festival – which, by coincidence, is needed more this year than ever.”
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