SO:MUSIC CITY

From Smilefest to SO:Music City, Solent celebrated 10 years of music industry guests, performances and workshops throughout Solent University.

Students have always been at the heart of everything that Smilefest did, including student projects that were connected to the conference.

The core event (live shows, conference, club nights and workshops) were organised by students studying BA (Hons) Music Management, BA (Hons) Music Promotion and BA (Hons) Popular Music Journalism, with support from a range of other courses at the University. 

As we found guests from all sides of the music industry to speak to our students we realised that we weren’t impacting the local music scene in Southampton. This is where SO:Music City was born.

SO:MUSIC CITY festival

All of the details for the so:music city campaign and festival

SO:Music City is the campaign to highlight how much music goes on in Southampton across all genres and to support the growth of a sustainable music industry for the city.

It’s important to highlight how much goes on in the city. It raises awareness to current non-gig-goers, it may help you find out about new scenes, nights and venues. It will help people realise we have as much music going on in this city as places like Brighton, Bristol and Liverpool, we just need to shine a light on it.

At a time when our music venues are closing and more music creatives than ever before are having to leave Southampton to make a living, it’s never been more urgent for us all to take a positive stand.

Music is central to Southampton culture – it’s time for all of Southampton’s musicians, music industries and music fans to step up, collaborate and shine. Help us build a music-positive city.

Credit – SO:Music City Festival

The campaign started out with the festival where we were able to mix Southampton’s local music scene with the local businesses in the Guildhall Square.

Credit – SouthPoint Films

To keep up to date with the SO:Music City campaign and festival below are the social media links so you know exactly what’s happening.

Read about all the SMILEfest archives of 10+ years.