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Almost 50 British bands performed at a new music festival in Dubai this past weekend. Dubai Sound City was organized in order to create exposure for new British bands in an entirely new market.

Dave Pichilingi, the British event director, told the BBC: “The record industry is in sharp decline, the more markets we can open up the better. It offers [the British music industry] the opportunity to do business with people they might never have met before, the paying audience for the festival have come from places like India, China and Japan.”

Dubai is seen as a basically untapped market for music sales and exposure for new British bands. The festival spanned six venues and heard performances from the Wave Pictures, Post War Years, Sound of Guns and We Have Band. More established bands such as the Wombats and the Courteeners also played sets there.
“There’s nothing like this, they’re used to having Kylie or Keane, fairly middle of the road or huge artists,’ Pichilingi continued. “There have never been less conservative or leftfield artists playing here.”

The event director described the city as “an international gateway between the east and the west,” and said that the festival would make these bands more “bankable” as artists.

The Bicyle Thieves’ frontman, Tom Hammersley, told the BBC of the experience: “It’s a totally different kind of music industry – with everything becoming more westernized they need to sort everything they do. This is the start of something. They’re looking to offer ventures to bring money in. Culturally it’s middle eastern but the infrastructure seems completely western.”