Waves is a one-day multi-venue music festival which takes place in and around Sunderland city centre, run by the promoters behind Sunderland’s longest running live music venue and nightclub Independent. Waves first took place in 2021, a much smaller form of what it has now become using just 5 city centre venues, the biggest of which being 200 capacity and comprising entirely of exciting local talent from Sunderland and surrounding areas. The first year was a great success and spurred aspirations to make Waves bigger and better every year.

Year two (2022) saw the addition of The Fire Station as a new large main stage and bigger acts such as The Pale White, Pip Blom, Tom A. Smith, Ishamael Ensemble, Galaxians and more. Following this 2023 saw an even bigger again festival with some new stages added, a total of 8 across Sunderland, and bigger headliners than before; Everything Everything and Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs alongside a lineup of exciting and emerging talents from the North East and beyond as always.

Waves 2024 is shaping up really well, at the time of writing tickets are about to go on sale and the line up is looking super exciting. A whole day of discovering new music and watching your favourite bands, one ticket, exchanged for a wristband, allows access to all eight venues across the city to watch live music all day for over 10 hours.

The festival would not be possible without the help of all of our partners, venues and sponsors, so we must all say the biggest thank you to them.

Sponsors: Sunderland City Council, Sunderland BID, Molson Coors, A Kendal Builders, VAUX, NAME, Independent, Supermax Creative.

Venues: The Fire Station, Independent, Pop Recs, The Ship Isis, The Bunker, Diego’s, Museum Vauls, The Ivy House.

Promoters: Portions For Foxes, Serial Bowl Records, BBC Music Introducing, Stockton Calling.