When I first heard about FAIR PLAY back in late 2019, I was absolutely buzzing that there was going to be another all day festival full of great bands and endless amounts of booze to embarrass myself at.
However, COVID threw a spanner in the works yet again, and meant that the festival could no longer take place on its original date in March 2020 - a date in which we now all know as the beginning of the end.
Instead, I found myself sat in front of my work computer propped up by a few Guinness World Records books and an underlying sense of severe anxiety, whilst I bleached my veg and booked a date with Joe Wicks.
Fast forward to 2022, though, the year in which we’ll hopefully be rid of the COVID burden, and FAIR PLAY festival has announced its full line-up of acts that will take to the stage this April at some very familiar venues across the city centre.
The festival prides itself on being a fair playing field, an equal opportunity for all and a communal, collaborative event, featuring a diverse lineup that's fair and accessible (inclusive of genre, gender, sexuality, race and beyond).
It welcomes musicians that are dubbed as ‘alternative’ in all of its multiple forms and houses them under one roof, and 2022 aims to be a bigger and more exaggerated version of what was planned for both 2021 and 2020.
This time, the festival will take over Manchester’s Northern Quarter on Saturday 2nd April and into the early hours of Sunday. With more stages and spaces, as well as a collaboration with London-based record label, untitled (recs) and a wider line-up with more musicians who the organisers wanted to give that platform to.
It now feels like 2020 and 2021 were a bit of a trial run, ahead of a more confident rebirth.
The festival’s full line-up is as follows, with more still yet to be announced: Algernon Cornelius, Another Country $$$$, BABii, Big Joanie, Blue Bendy, BOSS, Bull, Callum Easter, The Cool Greenhouse, comfort, CURRENTMOODGIRL, deathcrash, DITZ, Famous, Global Charming, halfs, Horsey, Humint, Jessica Winter, Meatraffle, Nukuluk, Otis Mensah, Priceless Bodies, Regressive Left, Robbie & Mona, Rosie Alena, Sofa King, Slow Knife, TAAHLIAH, Tibyan Mahawah Sanoh, Tony Njoku and YAANG.
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FAIR PLAY Festival 2022 Date: Saturday 2nd April Venue: SOUP, Gullivers, The Castle Hotel, AATMA and The Peer Hat Cost: £16 Buy Tickets