Young people set to takeover Festival Venue for BTC All Dayer

BTC All Dayer is a free music festival event aimed for anyone who wants to see great music or have a day out. Brighten The Corners’ youth project Tune Up are taking over the former Superdry store in Ipswich.

Written by Elena Harris

Tune Up group

Tune Up is a ten-week course comprising 16-25-year-olds who want to develop their production skills for live music events. The programme offers weekly workshops and guest sessions, leading them to host their own live music event. Tune Up focuses on teaching key skills and hands-on experience that are not always taught at colleges or universities, while boosting up CVs to help young people work in the industry. 

Tune Up planning session

Boosting CVs in an unemployable world

Given the tightening entry-level job market, this programme is vital for helping young adults gain the experience they need when applying for live event jobs in a competitive industry. In the UK, the unemployment rate has risen to 5.2%, the highest level in almost five years. This has affected many young adults. Unemployment for 18 to 24-year-olds was 14% by early 2026, the highest rate in 11 years, excluding the pandemic. 

The job market has become increasingly competitive, where many factors, such as recruiters becoming more picky, economic growth slowing down, and the rise of AI, are making it difficult to secure entry-level positions. Nonetheless, Tune Up addresses this by equipping young people with real-world experience. In turn, this builds their CVs and provides the industry knowledge necessary to excel in interviews. 

Inspiring people through live music

This free music festival gives the chance to experience live music, where it has become notoriously hard due to the increase of ticket prices at bigger festivals. Today, music festivals have become extortionate, where it’s almost become a privilege to experience live music. 

The expensive ticket sales are harming spectators, performers, and venues alike, where a mix of inflation and corporate greed is preventing artists from setting a fair price for their audience, causing a lot of people to back out of going to a gig or festival. According to a 2024 survey, 44% of festival-goers are buying fewer tickets due to expensive ticket prices. Since 2019,194 uk festivals have disappeared with 60 uk festivals being postponed or canceled completely in 2024, and in 2026 festivals such as the Hardwick Festival are being cancelled due to inflation and the cost of living. However, campaigns such as the 5% For Festivals, which brings awareness to the crisis, wanting the government to lower VAT from 20% to 5% on ticket sales, for the next three years, starts to show the fight back for festivals. Notoriously, the musician Yungblud who created his own music festival to battle against expensive ticket prices, states how he can’t “play a festival that's £800 a ticket”, elucidates the idea of fighting back against the issue of increased tickets prices.Though the demand for festivals is strong, the inflation cause a ticket purchase backout. Nonetheless, small steps, such as 5% For Festivals and Yungblud, are helping to bring back the community of the festival-goers. 

The Detour soundcheck and interview

With BTC putting on a free festival, it’s part of the small step to bring new interest in live music and carry on the festival community, while listening to great musicians and inspiring others through music. Simultaneously, the festival is about giving upcoming regional artists the opportunity to perform and reach out to new fans. Playing at venues today can become increasingly expensive for smaller artists who want to grow their following, but struggle due to high venue prices, the All Dayer festival gives the chance for smaller artists to get new people to listen to their music and grow as performers.

There will be multiple bands and musicians performing at seven venues, including Three Wise Monkeys, Chip Studios, Arcade Tavern, the Halberd Inn, The Thomas Wolsey, the BTC-run venue The Church, and the former Superdry store in the Buttermarket Centre. Organised by the Brighten the Corners team, the Superdry venue will be taken over by a volunteer group called ‘Tune Up’.