City Roars! Festival Returns After Two-Year Covid Hiatus

City ROARS! Festival is slated to return on its third edition with an all local line-up after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic.

This year’s City ROARS! Festival will take place in Kuala Lumpur, 28 May from 3:00pm to 11:00pm. The day-long event will have ten bands performing in an indoor venue, which will be announced at a later date. Despite the scale down, the festival will have the same vibe as the previous festival’s outdoor and multi-stages set up: the range of artists spans up-and-coming pop punk band Hacktick!, Borneo indie-pop legends Nice Stupid Playground, maximalist producer and pop star Shelhiel who recently made his debut at SXSW, indie rock mainstays Seven Collar T-Shirt and instrumental trio Dirgahayu, returning after a long hiatus, and more to be added soon.

FIRST CROSS-BORDER HYBRID FESTIVAL

While live-streaming has been gaining popularity, no overseas hybrid event has been done – that is – until now!

On 28 May, 2022, City ROARS! Festival intends to co-organise the first-ever cross-border hybrid event, including both physical and live stream performances by Malaysian and Taiwanese artists, with Taiwanese partner – Emerge Music.

The eight-hour event will provide live audiences and online viewers (via web-conferencing platform Gather Town) with both real-life and immersive experience.

City ROARS! Festival was first conceived in 2019. This one-day festival is jointly organized by Kuala Lumpur based promoter Soundscape Records, Dong Tai Du and Taiwanese label Emerge Music – an international collaboration to bring together independent artists from all over Asia on one platform, showcasing the best of innovative independent music. The festival also serve as a collaborative space for artists to share and present new musical ideas. There’s a host of performances lined up on various stages, and workshops and activities including an art market, peddling interesting knick-knacks and craft pieces.

Its purpose is twofold:

To support Malaysian artists in the exploration and development of international markets around the world, and
To engage the international music industry and inform them about the rich and diverse Malaysian music scene.

Over the years, City ROARS! Festival brought many Malaysian artists abroad, to ensure that a diversity of local artists connect with audiences everywhere.

This component provides financial assistance to undertake activities that help Malaysian artists gain a greater profile internationally, increase their artistic and business skills, and build their export-readiness and overall competitiveness.

Visiting trade fairs, participating in showcase festivals and match making sessions, establish two-way artistic exchanges that result in new collaboration, and joint performances, these are some of the initiatives we have taken since a decade ago, an effective tool for making new contacts internationally.

This year’s edition is supported by Cultural Economy Development Agency (CENDANA), an umbrella body with enough resources and expertise to reach and improve the cultural sector of the creative economy. With a large and growing amount of data, CENDANA will be able to see the big picture and diagnose the effects of one part of the ecosystem on another, funnelling aid where it is needed. UK clothing brand Fred Perry, the first British heritage brand to successfully blend sportswear with streetwear to create some of the most iconic styles of the last century, and US-based TuneCore, a leading digital music distribution, publishing, and licensing company with over 150 premium partners across the globe. TuneCore expanded into South East Asia in April 2021 and has localised websites in English, Thai, Bahasa Indonesia and soon to be launched, Vietnamese.

Early bird tickets are now on-sale at https://cityroarsfest2022.peatix.com from 7th April to 21th April.