We speak to festival director Geoff Ellis on TRNSMT returning for 2024.
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00:00Glasgow's got UNESCO city music status, and deservedly so, because through King Tut's,
00:08which is our venue, we've been promoting bands who go on to arenas and stadiums. I think
00:17there's over 60% of the acts that play at Hydro previously played at King Tut's on their
00:24way up, so that's important. But there's lots of venues in the city, lots of great
00:29venues supporting live music at a grassroots level, and probably more so than anywhere else.
00:35There's about seven or eight gigs every night of the week in Glasgow, which is phenomenal
00:40considering the size of its population. Then you've got the bigger venues like Barrowland,
00:45the O2 Academy, and then obviously the Hydro for the big acts, and the stadiums as well.
00:52Glasgow has always been a live music city, and lots of bands come from Glasgow. Going back to
01:01the days of the sensational Alex Harvey band, right through to the big artists of today,
01:09Paolo Mutini's from just outside Glasgow, and Paisley, and Lewis Capaldi not too far,
01:16Amy Macdonald from Bishop Briggs. We've always produced musicians, Simple Minds,
01:23Texas, Gun, all the other ones I'm forgetting as well. Transmit plays its role in that. We're
01:34the largest festival in Scotland and one of the largest in the UK, and it's great to have our
01:40home here in the city centre. I think it's important for Scottish music. I think obviously
01:46they have to be big enough to be able to headline, but if you look in the past at
01:52Senior Park, which is the festival we used to do, headliners, Soul Patrol, Texas, Paolo Mutini,
01:59Calvin Harris, Lewis Capaldi's headline there, Transmit as well. It's important for the Glasgow
02:09music scene, or the Scottish music scene rather, to see these bands come through and progress.
02:14In the case of Jerry Lewis playing the King's Touch stage and then headlining the main stage,
02:24it gives other bands hope as well and they can see, wow, that trajectory is there. You don't
02:29have to be the Foo Fighters from the US or the Killers or whatever to headline a festival in
02:35your own country. You can start off playing a small stage at Transmit and go on to be a headline.
02:43Obviously, you've got to get the fans on the side to do that, but there's no barrier to
02:49stop that. If you're an artist, you write the songs, people come to the gigs, eventually you'll
02:55hopefully get to headline something like Transmit. That's good for not just young
03:01musicians, but for any musicians to see that there is a pathway.