Burnley’s mini-musical revolution underway with Festival of Music & Culture

Burnley is set to undergo a mini-revolution in the coming weeks as the Burnley Festival of Music & Culture gets underway tomorrow evening.

The festival, which gets underway on Thursday, November 5th at the new Mechanics basement venue with a set from former world champion turntablist, DJ Woody. Influenced by the Manchester Psych Festival, the festival will also see Lily Rae Grant perform at St Peter's Church, with recent Golden Lion Sounds signees Warm Parts, who feature Burnley’s Dan Smith in the line-up.

Elsewhere, DJs Dieser and Jason Frost will play a mix of eclectic sounds with a Japanese twist and future jazz at The Lotus - Sushi & Ramen. Diesler was signed to Tru Thoughts in Brighton , which is a leading record label and was home to Bonobo and Quantic. While legendary guitarist Aziz Ibrahim (The Stone Roses, Simply Red) joins forces with tabla maestro Dalbir Singh Rattan will deliver an aggressive, enthralling, and highly energetic musical showcase at The Landmark, a performance that’s often self-described as an "Asian Blues" or "Raga-Rock".

The set is a multi-genre cultural collaboration that seamlessly blends the intricate, traditional rhythms of Indian classical music with the raw power of rock, psychedelia, melodies, and electronic dance music. Jack Launer, who is one of the faces behind the festival, expressed pride in the bill they’ve put together.

“There's so many good events happening, from whether it's just actually listening to music or learning about how to be part of the music industry and listening to people who've been on that journey, like Graham Massey and John Robb, and just learning from people who are going to come to the town and give people ideas and maybe inspire them to join bands and make Burnley a place where a hotbed of music talent,” Launer said.

When it came to preparing to launch the project, Launer approached the Arts Council, who were receptive to the festival concept, over providing funding for the event. The Arts Council subsequently provided funding within the region of around £30,000. “They have been very receptive, as has Lancashire University and a chap called Tony Rigg who really stuck the project together,” Launer said when explaining the support they’ve received.

“It's been in my head for years to try and do something like this, but you know when you're just one individual trying to get together all the different stakeholders who are all over the different flyers, you do need people who have sort of navigated that before and I've learned so much over the past six months to 12 months while we've been putting the event together. And now hopefully we've made a foundation and this can become a yearly event for Burnley and more and more people can get involved,” Launer finished.

Much has been made about the closures of notable grassroots venues in recent years, such as Sheffield’s Leadmill, Leicester's The Shed and even Moles in Bath – a venue that nurtured bands such as Radiohead, Oasis, The Killers and Pulp – further underlining the struggles that even the most notable grassroots venues face to remain afloat in 2026. However, an issue that has been raised by a variety of people in the town’s music scene is the rising number of tribute acts and a declining number of original artists, something that Launer noted. “You can see that as well because other areas have these grassroots venues and Burnley struggled to be on the circuit where bands as big as Oasis and Coldplay once started the journey. So without those kinds of venues, you're not going to see the success coming through the town,” Launer said.

“I think what I've been really pleased to see is the Arts Council being good to their word and funnelling money through to places like Burnley instead of it all going to London, Manchester and Leeds. We need it more than they do because they already have the platform and foundation for success, whereas when I went out and spoke to all of our venues two or three years ago now, they all cited that they couldn't really take risks on unheard of music and original music because if people didn't come, they ended up paying for a band that no one wanted to watch. Well, people probably did want to watch them, but they didn't know who they were.

“So getting this sort of grant from the Arts Council and giving people the chance to listen to new bands such as Lily Ray Grant, Warm Parts, and Rebecca Spooner, all who have, well most of them have roots in Burnley and or have been to Burnley College, is amazing. And so that the general public can just walk in and it's free, people should be all over it,” Launer finished.

Tickets to the Burnley Festival of Music & Culture are available here.