First 60 acts unveiled for this year’s Sŵn Festival

Cardiff’s award-winning Sŵn Festival has today unveiled the first batch of names for its 2025 edition.

The multi-venue festival is taking place across the Welsh capital from Thursday 16 October to Saturday 18 October. As with the beefed up 2024 edition of Wales’ premiere new music festival, Sŵn 2025 once again runs over three full days of programming as part of Cardiff Music City Festival – a two week-long celebration of gigs, happenings, installations and pop-ups.

Sŵn festival, founded by Huw Stephens in 2007, has been run by the team at Clwb Ifor Bach since 2018. While the festival has grown over the years to feature showcases at a plethora of venues across Cardiff, what’s not changed is Sŵn’s dedication to nurturing a diverse range of the best local, national, and international talent and offering a platform to bigger and better things.

Sŵn’s dedication to showcasing local, grassroots talent will see the audience treated to the masters of towering, poetic and gothic rock Slate; dance-along guitar indie-pop from Shale; and Speedy Wunderground-endorsed, screeching post-punk family band Morn. Other Welsh talents to keep an eye out for include the ascendant Cardiff-based Casual Smart and singer-songwriter Georgia Ruth.

This year will also shine a spotlight on Talulah, whose jazz-infused melodies, and dreamy harmonies earned them the 2023 Welsh Music Prize’s Triskel Award; as well as the 18-year-old singer-songwriter from Merthyr Tydfil, Nancy Williams, a promising new talent in the UK’s indie-folk scene.

Adding to the Welsh line-up already bursting at the seams, Mykki Blanco, internationally renowned musician, poet and activist widely recognised as the trailblazer and originator of the “queer rap” genre is a name not to be missed at this year’s festival.

London-based art-punk five-piece Man/Woman/Chainsaw will be bringing their dynamic fusion of punk energy, classical instrumentation, and experimental arrangements to the streets of Cardiff, and post-punk Irish five-piece, Gurries, will demand your attention with their raw energy and razor-sharp riffs.

This year’s festival is once again multi-venue across all three days, set to ignite Womanby Street and beyond with a stacked itinerary for the ravenous new music lover. Participating venues this year include: Tramshed, Clwb Ifor Bach, St John’s Church, Jacobs Basement, Fuel, The Canopi, Tiny Rebel, The New Moon and Porters.

Adam Williams, Head of Music at Sŵn, says of this year’s festival: “We’re thrilled to unveil the first wave of artists for Sŵn Festival 2025. This year, the festival returns with three full days of new music in Cardiff’s grassroots music venues — featuring over 150 artists performing across 10 incredible stages.

“We’re proud to champion new music and give a platform to the amazing artists we collaborate with throughout the year — many of whom will be playing their biggest shows in Wales to date. And there’s more to come — we’re currently putting the finishing touches on some very special guests, unique stage takeovers, and the return of our artist development conference, Sŵn Connect.

“Stay tuned — we’ll be sharing all the details soon!”

This year’s festival is geared towards being more accessible to the wider community than ever before, with the introduction of payment plans, concession tickets and more opportunities to get involved with the festival through the volunteer programme and a brand new apply to play scheme. Sign up to the mailing list to be notified about when applications open.

Find out more HERE