Events

 There's something going on all the time... so how do you find it?

The term 'Event' can cover a whole multitude of sins!
Most small weekly record hops will take place in the evening in a small dance hall or a Working Men's Club with a dance floor. They'll often attract between 50 and 100 people, last a few hours and have music played by a DJ. Meanwhile monthly events will often feature both bands and DJs. All day events, surprisingly known as 'All-Dayers', usually feature multiple bands and/or DJs and often take place in larger venues with several rooms featuring dancing, clothing stalls and catering. Taking it up a gear, you'll find the Weekenders, Vintage Festivals and even International events up to a week long which can take place at multiple venues in a town or city and feature dozens of Bands and DJs.

All these events will cater for different people, tastes and music, and may have a bias towards live musicians, socialising or dancing. If your interest is in vehicles, there are also events that specialise in showing and racing classic and vintage cars and bikes!

To get the best out of an event, you need to know what it has to offer, what you want to get out of it, how far you want to travel and how much you want to spend. Events can involve anything from a free midweek record hop to a week abroad taking in a city break, so get as much information as possible before you book.
Things to consider might include bands or DJs, the size and quality of the dancefloors, your accommodation or the bars and beers available.
It will also depend on how deeply you're into the scene: there are events to cater for everyone, from the occasional music fan to the devout Teds and Rockabillies.

When you're starting to visit events for the first time this can be quite a lot to juggle, so ask around, join some Social media groups and browse YouTube :)

When you first start looking, it's easy to miss things because there's no one source to advertise all these events. However, a couple of the sites do reasonably well:

The Complete UK Rock n Roll Gig Guide allows you to search through Gigs by filtering them on geographical regions or searching specifically for the name of a band, or by looking for Special Events. It covers everything from small weekly Record Hops to Weekenders BUT relies on the event organisers contacting the website to add the events, so it's only as good as the event organisers.

The Facebook rockin' gig guide allows anyone, including event organisers, to post details of events with posters. This means that events can be added and updated very quickly, but the posts themselves will quickly move down the page so you often have to scroll for a while to find things. The downside is that you sometimes get different posts with original and updated information about the same event which can be confusing.

Reviews

Want to find out what you've miss out on, or how an annual event went in the past?
The Bettajive Review visits and reviews 1940s and 1950s events all over the UK, presenting in-depth and entertaining commentary on the music, bands and scene.

Weekenders and more

There are lots of big events and festivals, but some of them don't appear on all the Gig Guides. These tend to be hugely successful events that don't need the advertising because everyone already knows about them. Great if you've been on the Scene for a while but hard to find for newcomers!

So, in no particular order, here are a few of the promo videos for just some of the big annual events to give you an idea of what to expect:

Got a promo video for an event to add to this list? This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.