XMTR AUDIO ARTS FESTIVAL is back in the lovely seaside town of St Leonards-on-Sea, alongside sound art focused festival; Sono-Electro at Electro Studios.

This year is set to be even more ambitious, spanning multiple unique and wonderful venues in and around St Leonards-on-Sea. Deep diving into the craft of creative audio in its many forms, from powerful and provocative performances, to focused listening and immersive experiences.

Above all XMTR Festival is a gathering of the creative audio community to inspire, connect and collaborate. 

“XTMR was a fantastic little festival that packed a big punch. It's a sorely needed gathering for audio makers working in an ever-more fragmentary environment.”

“This is one of the most exciting and necessary events to emerge in the audio landscape this year. To be in a place that is all about the creative and not at all market focussed is not just nice but essential if we are to protect the creative health of the audio industry's producer class. It charged my creative batteries, connected me to other producers and I left glowing. In fact, the afterglow is profound!”

”This was one of the most creative and welcoming festivals I've been to for audiophiles! It's so rare to find a space to geek out on oral storytelling and sound in all it's varied mediums, but I certainly found my people. I'll definitely be coming back next year!”

”This festival brings the heart and creative connections back into the sonic space. Bringing together artists from a wide range of genres and disciplines, the common thread is the joy of using sound to tell stories; to gather; to connect. Honestly made me want to drop everything and return full time to working on soundart.”

Come and join us!

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

We’re back in St Leonards-On-Sea to celebrate creative audio and bring together communities around sound

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 to celebrate creative audio in venues and spaces in and around St Leonards on Sea.

We will be joining forces once again with Sono-Electro a sound arts festival taking place at Electro Studios in St Leonards on Sea, 16th-28th September, for three days of immersion into sound and creative audio practices.

Why St Leonards on Sea?
This seaside area 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, intimate spaces and artist led venues, making it an ideal place for a roving festival.

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 connects an international audio community with the thriving local arts scene.

Local Frequencies
Part of the ethos of this festival is 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 lays the foundations for the festival, making it a celebration of place through sonic storytelling.

If you want to take part or get involved you can pitch an idea HERE (deadline 6th May)
For anything else just hit <<get in touch>> below.