The 2018 Hard Working Class Heroes Festival will take place 27–29 September in venues in Dublin. 

Presented by First Music Contact, HWCH is an annual festival aimed at showcasing emerging acts for new audiences and visiting industry delegates. HWCH features two strands: a series of 30-minute performances by selected artists over the three days, and a conference featuring networking sessions and talks. 

50 artists
50 artists will perform at the festival, selected from a call for submissions earlier this year. Among those performing will be electro-pop band Ae Mak (28 Sep, The Grand Social); hip-hop artist Damola (28 Sep, Tramline); folk songwriter Joshua Burnside – who we recently wrote about here (29 Sep, The Grand Social); multi-instrumentalist songwriter Roe (28 Sep, Yamamori Tengu); and indie guitar band True Tides (28 Sep, The Grand Social). The full list of showcasing artists can be seen below.

Does Media Matter?
The HWCH festival conference will begin on Thursday afternoon 27 September with presentations by Guild of Music Supervisors, PIAS UK and a launch and networking event, including the graduation ceremony of the FMC ‘Start your own music business’ course. On Friday, the conference will feature speed sessions for artists to meet visiting delegates (see our announcement here), and talks such as ‘The How & Why of Playlists’, and ‘Has Technology Made Life Easier?’. Saturday will also begin with speed networking sessions, and the talks will include ‘Does Media Matter?’, a discussion of ‘Mental Health and Music’, and ‘Social or Bust – The Value of Modern Social Media Engagement’. 

The keynote interview will be with Ann Marie Shields, the Head of Careers, industry Liaison and Events at BIMM Dublin and director of the AMS record label.

For full line-up and conference details, visit www.hwch.net.