The headliners at In It Together this year are Madness, Aitch and Snow Patrol.
We’re just weeks away from yet another colourful and musical weekend of In It Together at Old Park Farm in Margam. In the fifth year of the festival Madness, Aitch and Snow Patrol will headline.
Daisy Lucas from Aberdare is Escape’s head of campaign strategy and delivery. She’s been part of Escape, the company behind In It Together, since the festival was just an idea on a piece of paper.
This year 100,000 people are expected to head to Old Park Farm across the weekend.
The 36-year-old has shared her highlights. She said: “It’s insane when you think about it because it launched in 2021, with the first show in 2022. We’re going into our fifth year and now we’re the second biggest independent festival next to Glastonbury in the UK, which is mental.” From superstar gigs to cosy pubs, find out What’s On in Wales by signing up to our newsletter here
Escape, the team behind In It Together was launched in Newport and they made it their mission to bring good music across Wales. The team spend the majority of the year in Port Talbot, getting to know the local community whilst planning the upcoming festival. Daisy explained that they took a risk when picking the area, and specifically Margam to host the festival.
She said: “We took a chance on picking somewhere like Port Talbot where not many people previously would have stopped.
“It was like a drive-through town, certainly for me when I was growing up and you always had to go to Cardiff for stuff like this. So to put it somewhere like Port Talbot which is so easily accessible for everyone and give them a reason to stop, the community was just like ‘okay’ and just like wrapped their arms around us which was really nice.
“I think if you weren’t from Port Talbot, it was definitely the town of the steelworks but having spent the vast majority of the last five years there, it’s always been so much more than the steelworks.
“To be able to bring people to Port Talbot so they can discover it for themselves is great.
“Some of the world’s biggest actors are from Port Talbot. You’ve got brands like San Portablo, you’ve got the Richard Burton 10k, you have got people in the community doing phenomenal things. It is just so much more than the the steelworks and it’s really nice that the world gets to see that it’s so much more than that now.”
At the moment, the team are hard at work finalising everything ready for the big weekend which is just seven weeks away. Daisy shared what attendees can expect from this year’s festival, saying: “Well, it’s our fifth birthday, so we’re going bigger and better. Headliners are going to be amazing. I’m fully expecting a very emotional moment when Snow Patrol are on stage on Sunday night, for me, at least.
“Then there’s going to be like an Oktoberfest beer tent there, there’s the adults arena in the general campsite which is 18 plus and it’s got its own little line-up, the Jazz Café is back and there’s more going on. We’ve got the bandstand this year and we’ve teamed up with Stagecoach who are going to be doing some theatre schools there.”
In It Together will once again be showcasing an array of Welsh artists. Daisy said: “We always sort of have in our ethos to put 50 local Welsh artists, whether they’re DJs, they’re bands, they are solo or they’re Welsh language.
“We’re always committed to that and we always follow through on that, and we never want to lose where we came from, no matter how old or how big we get. So I think it’s important that we remain committed to that every year, which we are.
“From an artist’s perspective, you know, when they come and, you know, some of them might never have heard of Port Talbot before, but when they come, they’re like, this is amazing. This is because there’s a real community spirit around there. It’s really family-friendly, it’s a family-focused festival, and everybody just loves it.”
Daisy also explained that much like us, she has no idea who this year’s mystery special guest is. In fact, she found out the same time as everyone else that Ruth Jones would be appearing last year.
She said: “I wish I knew. What’s really nice about the mystery special guest is Mark, who’s our director of festivals, he’ll book it and he won’t tell any of us. So we all find out at the same time, which is really fun.
“Last year, I had an inkling when I saw the graffiti, that it could have been Rob Brydon or Ruth Jones. I was like, ‘I don’t know which one it’s going to be’, but yeah, I found out when everybody else did.”
Daisy says people keep coming back year after year, especially families, and they enjoy seeing the grandparents who take up the free ticket offer.”I see the same people come back here and I see families get bigger, kids get older, it’s a really surreal experience,” she said
You can find more information about In It Together Festival and how to get tickets here.
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