XMTR AUDIO ARTS FESTIVAL 27th-29th September 2024
St Leonards On Sea, East Sussex, UK

XMTR celebrated sonic storytelling as part of the Sono-Electro Sound Arts Festival at
Electro Studios in St Leonards on Sea.

FRIDAY 27TH SEPTEMBER 2024 - PROGRAMME 

SATURDAY 28TH SEPTEMBER 2024 -  PROGRAMME 

SUNDAY 29TH SEPTEMBER 2024 - PROGRAMME

Photos in this reel by: Rachel Manns / Georgina Cook / Eleanor McDowall / Will Gore + Esme Curtis / Hayley Clarke / Jesse Lou Lawson / Lucia Scazzocchio / Hannah Kemp-Welch

Post Festival Listening:
Things You Don’t Hear at a Podcast Conference by Lina Prestwood

Radio Limbo LIVE in St. Leonards... by Radio Limbo

Blue Heart + XMTR by Stellaria Media

Access Lucy Dearlove’s In The Dark ‘Terroir’ Playlist

This is the beginning…

Over the past decade, Social Broadcasts has been combining community led co-creation, participatory art practice and radio making to produce place based audio projects all across the UK. In 2021 sonic storytelling platform XMTR.FM was launched with the ambition to showcase work from both emerging and seasoned independent audio makers from across the globe.

XMTR AUDIO ARTS FESTIVAL combines these two concepts to imagine an audio festival that champions local stories and artists as well as showcasing audio works from around the world. 3 days of sound installations, performances, listening events, workshops and sound walks in venues and spaces in and around St Leonards on Sea.

For this inaugural festival,  XMTR joined Sono-Electro a sound arts festival taking place at Electro Studios in St Leonards on Sea, 19th -29th September. XMTR will be curating one day at Sono-Electro (Saturday 28th September) as well as hosting a number of satellite events around St Leonards and Hastings over the weekend of the 27th-29th September. XMTR and Sono-Electro are separate but intertwined.

Why St Leonards?
This seaside resort in Hastings has been a popular destination since the 1850’s when the railways arrived from London, Brighton and the Southeast. Today the town has a thriving artist community and a plethora of historical buildings and spaces, making it an ideal place for a roving festival. The festival will take place at Electro Studios on Saturday 28th September and across multiple locations around the town with installations, performances, events and workshops on Friday 27th and Sunday 29th September.

Why An Audio Festival?
As the audio and radio making space becomes more digital, in person, creative and collaborative experiences are ever more important. There are plenty of ‘podcast’ festivals focused on the business of podcasting and the nuts and bolts of audio production, but currently in the UK  there is very little celebration of the creativity of audio making and radio arts. Inspired by festivals such as the LUCIA Festival in Florence, Radio Revolten in Halle, Germany (2016), Hearsay in Ireland (2014-2019), it’s time that there was somewhere for the ever-growing community of creative audio makers (podcast producers, sound artists, radio makers) to gather, collaborate and be inspired and for both already initiated and new audiences to experience the richness and diversity of creative audio storytelling.
This festival will connect an international audio community with the thriving local arts scene.

Local Frequencies
Part of the ethos of this festival will be that it’s not top down, but instead deeply embedded in the area and the local community. The aim is to create works featuring historical and contemporary local stories, collaborate with local artists and venues and co-ordinate audio making workshops for already embedded groups to produce ‘locally sourced’ work to be featured at the festival.
This community led, placed based work will lay the foundations for the festival, making it a celebration of place through sonic storytelling.

If you want to take part or get involved next year just hit get in touch below ><