The SFTOC 2025 line-up is here – Sounds From The Other City
Salford's festival of new music & art • 4 May 2025
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2025 Line-Up Reveal

The SFTOC programme has landed!

Look… we’re turning 20, and we don’t trust you to organise a surprise party for us (it’s nothing personal, we just know you’re busy and also horrible at making plans)

So we took matters into our own hands and enlisted some of the best promoters we know to help us with this one. And my oh my, what a party we’ve planned. Here are the headlines:

We’ve got…
18 selectors
programming 16 stages
with 80 artists confirmed so far

+ here’s just a small taste of the highlights:
(flavour – cheese & pineapple hedgehog)


Popping up around the university site…

  • Experience incendiary energy from the incredible combination of Grove ft. Toya and TaliaBle at Maxwell Hall
  • Freewheeling scuzzy rock from Newcastle’s Du Blonde also at Maxwell Hall
  • Alt-pop German-Australian producer Hachiku at Salford Museum & Art Gallery
  • The woozy wonky compositions of Danish violist Astrid Sonne in Peel Hall.


A little snippet of what’s on at Islington Mill…

  • Indie-avant-pop group and Mill studio residents, The Orielles
  • Fellow resident, electronic producer and WH Lung member Tom Sharkett
  • Party punk queens Loose Articles


A taster of venues all along Chapel Street…

  • Dublin’s electro-punk trio YARD take on a true festival favourite, The Old Pint Pot.
  • The historic Bexley Square sees the return of SEEN and a back-to-back set from two of Manchester’s best: Chunky B2B Samrai
  • The gorgeous St Philips Church will play stage to the kuduro-flavoured grooves of London-based bassist Marla Kether

Dive into the full fat delights of the line-up here:

Our 2025 Selectors

Our unique festival model means that the curation of the Sounds line-up is constantly evolving and will always remain in the hands of Greater Manchester’s creative community.

Each year we invite a selection of the region’s best promoters and selectors to book the artists that most excite them. We give them a stage and budget – the rest is up to them.

This year we’ve invited some long-standing friends such as Heavenly Recordings, Now Wave and Band on the Wall alongside some new(er) faces, including Crop Radio, $eamu$ and Friends, Rare Mags and FLUFF.

Find out more and see the line-up by stage here.

 

Sign up to our mailing list to get INSTANT access to pre-sale tickets. The £30 Early Birds will go this week, so be quick!

Enthusiastically supported by: