Emerge Festival 2019: All You Need to Know
Emerge Festival 2019 is an exciting new multi-venue music and arts festival, in the form of 40 different ‘Lates’ in leading museums and art galleries. One ticket gets you into the lot. Single night tickets are available too. Here’s all you need to know, including...
- What it's all about
- Who’s playing
- How tickets work
What is Emerge Festival?
It’s a new festival comprised of over 40 museum ‘lates’ across two evenings. In their words, it’s “Night at the Museum meets Glastonbury.” They’re challenging conceptions of who museums and galleries are for, with a specially curated lineup of new UK talent. It’s a showcase of exciting, fresh UK musicians, artists, poets and performers in some of the capital’s most esteemed and historic cultural spaces. Don’t miss it.
What is a museum ‘late’?
It’s when museums dedicated to the arts and sciences stay open after-hours, putting on gigs, performances, workshops, DJ sets and more. Emerge Festival sees 40 different lates take place across two evenings...and you only need one ticket to see the lot. Well, you probably won’t be able to make it to the lot. But it’s definitely worth planning to go to a few different venues. The Night Tube’s on, so no excuses. [caption id="attachment_3827" align="alignnone" width="4000"]
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When is it?
It’s taking place across two evenings: Friday 27th and Saturday 28th September 2019. Things kick off in each venue around 5pm, and some places stay open until the wee small hours.
What's on?
Check out the Emerge Festival website for the full lineup.
Give me some highlights...
Well, sure. Emerge Festival have put together some handy suggested itineraries to suit a range of tastes. Take a look at their plans for a Soulful Night Out in the South, an Epic Friday Night Out in Central and their guide to some of the most wonderfully weird performances taking place across the weekend, which includes something called the Immersive Chocolate Cabaret Quest. You’re going to have to read up about that for yourselves. No amount of me explaining could do it justice.
You got a top ten?
1. Getting things started in South London is Ady Suleiman, headlining with Poppy Ajudha in support at the Horniman Bandstand on Friday. 2. Jungle didn’t sound like anyone when they came out, blending influences from across the planet to make slick modern soul with real class and energy. Check out the duo’s impeccable, eclectic music taste as they perform a DJ set at the Natural History Museum on Saturday night. 3. Wellington Arch is getting transformed into a pop-up terrace gin bar on Friday night, with RnB singer-songwriter Morgan Munroe performing. 4. There’s a flipping Silent Disco happening on Tower Bridge’s glass walkway on Saturday night. Dancing on a glass floor with the Thames rolling by underneath you? You don’t know it’s on your Bucket List until it is. 5. If you’re looking for stars in ascendancy, head to IN FUTURE, a night curated by the big-and-getting-bigger Flohio and Livity feat. A2 and Green Tea Peng at Banqueting House on Friday night. 6. There’s tons on at The Design Museum on Saturday night, including jazz-adjacent electronica outfit Ishmael Ensemble; a DJ set from Brackles; The Masala Monologues and Mr Gee's WorkinOnIt. 7. Talks, workshops and pop-up exhibitions to there’s no shame in female sexuality at the Vagina Museum Special at the Jewish Museum. Head down there on Saturday. 8. Get down to Grand Junction on Saturday to catch R'n'B star Kate Stewart and 2019 Young People’s Laureate for London Theresa Lola, as well as Molly Burman and The International Lovers. 9. Nunnery Gallery is putting on a big night of music on Saturday. Head there to see ravers Benin City, the enigmatic Mina Rose and rapper/poet John Akinde. 10. Body positivity and mental health awareness are the focus of the Body & Mind Party taking place at Dulwich Picture Gallery on Friday night. There’ll be mindfulness workshops, a body positive life drawing class and a Q & A with Bryony Gordon, author of ‘You Got This’. [caption id="attachment_3828" align="alignnone" width="3840"]
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Where is it taking place?
Barbican Centre, Natural History Museum, Design Museum, Handel and Hendrix, The Chocolate Museum...loads of places. Check out the map below to see who’s open. There are also some handy suggested circuits on there too.
How much is it?
You can either buy single night or weekend tickets. Single night tickets are available for £25, while weekend tickets are £40. There are concessions available though, for 18-30s, people claiming benefits and NHS workers. These come in at £15 for single night tickets and £30 for the weekend. Get on the Emerge Festival website for tickets.
How do the tickets work?
Once you've got them, print them off or bring them on your phone. At the first venue you go to, you trade your ticket for a wristband. When you leave to go to the next place, keep your wristband on, because you'll need it to get in to each venue.
Anything else I should know?
Just a quick word on the good place it’s coming from. Conceived by arts charity Culture24, the festival is all about opening up the city’s cultural spaces to audiences who might not have engaged with them before, particularly young people. Despite London being packed full of museums and galleries, many don’t regularly visit or engage with cultural institutions, feeling that they aren’t ‘for them’. Through showcasing the best in emerging UK music and art in such spaces, they’re looking to change the way people see museums and galleries, showing them to be modern, progressive and relevant. So take a circuit around the arts and science spaces close to you, or introduce yourself to a whole new neighbourhood of museums and galleries. The weekend ticket gets you into the lot, the single evening tickets get you into everything that night. And, like we said before, the Night Tube will be on. If you need further evidence of the Emerge Festival’s credentials...It’s a meat-free festival, it’s been accredited as a Big Issue Festival for Good, and they don’t have single use plastic straws. Gender neutral toilets will also be available. So yeah, a festival for good as well as good times. [caption id="attachment_3832" align="alignnone" width="1294"]
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