North by Northwest is 3 days, 4 venues, 6 stages and 110 bands. It is being run by two working musicians who have a passion for live music and decided to take things into their own hands about the lack of this type of event in a town designed for it! Half of the bands are from Blackpool and the other half are from all over the country and one from mainland Europe. Ranging from Indie to Hip-Hop, Punk to Electro and Acoustic folk to Post rock, none of the venues are genre specific, this has be done to actively engage people in the festival and to fill the streets with music fans moving from one venue to the next (they are all within 5 mins walk of each other), in search of a band that pull their strings.

The cost of the festival is only £2 per day. They say:

“We are not doing this to make a profit, this all about the music. Should there be any profits we will be giving a donation to a local charity, The Tommy Castles Trust/Tommyfest and the rest will be re-invested in next year’s event to make it bigger and better. We have already had a lot of support from local musicians offering to help us, in anyway they can, this has ranged from sound engineers to art work design, to flyering and general gophering at the event. This is other face of NxNw, it is bringing together local bands in a non competitive way, the only other time we all seem to get together is at rock battles that only seem to breed animosity, so now were starting to work together and achieve new things.”

To coincide with NxNw there is also an exhibition of two local artists, Ric Hulme and Katie Wade, at the Super Collider Art Gallery on Clifton Street, this exhibition is called “5 shillings to 165 Guineas” and will be a mixture of paintings and installations.