Homegrown acts complete festival line-up

Bristol's Cousin Kula "can't wait" to share a stage with some of the bigger names at Forwards

A two-day festival in Bristol has announced its final line-up, with many local acts added to the bill.

FORWARDS takes places on The Downs from 31 August - 1 September with LCD Soundsystem, Four Tet, Loyle Carner and Jessie Ware among the performers.

They will be joined by a selection of newly-announced homegrown talent, including Cousin Kula, Lice and Kwazi.

"We’ve been coming to this festival for the past couple of years and it’s a real privilege to be been invited to play this year," said Cousin Kula.

The band have also just been announced as part of the BBC Introducing stage line-up at Glastonbury Festival.

Dave Harvey, festival director at Team Love said: "As a city, Bristol has some of the best young and emerging talent out there and we're huge advocates of giving them a platform to perform to big audiences."

Little Simz drew crowds to her performance in 2022

Also new to the line-up are Scottish rock band The Jesus and Mary Chain, Melbourne trio Glass Beams, and Bristol performers Danny Chaska, Laimu and Knives.

The festival will showcase Big Team's Next Level Artist Development Programme, a project specially designed to help support aspiring artists.

It will see local acts including alternative soul artist Sambee, Rellz & YB Micz and R&B singer Laura Dia take to the stage.

'Harder than ever' for artists

Mr Harvey said: "As festival organisers, it's really important for us to help emerging artists come through.

"It’s harder out there than ever before, hence why projects like Next Level exist, and we want to do as much as we can to help them get there - so local, Bristol talent will always be a key part of our programming."

Event organisers are yet to replace duo Maribou State who were originally announced, but have now cancelled all of their shows for 2024 due to illness.

Not just about music, the festival also hosts a series of talks on topical issues and has activities for children.