The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart to headline Indietracks 2010

We're thrilled to say that the Pains Of Being Pure At Heart will headline this year’s Indietracks Festival. The festival will take place on 23-25 July 2010 at the Midland Railway in Butterley, Derbyshire, and tickets are onsale from today.

We're so excited that The Pains of Being Pure At Heart have agreed to come and play at Indietracks this year. The New York band are the most talked about indiepop bands in years, playing brilliantly-executed pop gems that blend the rush of youthful enthusiasm with buckets of guitar noise. We can't wait to see them at the festival!

They'll be joined by John Peel favourites Ballboy, UK chart-toppers White Town, and this year’s two new indiepop sensations Standard Fare and Allo Darlin’. Over 40 bands have already been confirmed for the festival, and more will be added shortly. The full list is available at http://www.indietracks.co.uk/

Weekend tickets are now available at an early bird discount price of £55, and day tickets are available for £30. This price is available until Friday 7 May. After this date, weekend tickets will be £60 and day tickets £32.50. Tickets are available from www.indietracks.co.uk/tickets.html

Hope to see you in July!

Exciting announcement coming soon!

We’ll be making a very exciting ticket and headliner announcement about this year’s Indietracks next week on Tuesday March 23, so make sure you keep checking the official website for more information!

Alternatively, you can sign up to our mailing list to receive all the latest information by clicking the “sign me up” button on our website! Or follow us on Twitter. You can also check out which bands have already been announced here too, including Ballboy, Allo Darlin’ and Standard Fare.

First few bands announced!

Hello everyone! We've just about recovered from the wonderful weekend that was London Popfest, and seeing all those brilliant bands has made us even more excited about this year's Indietracks! We can now announce the first few bands to be added to the line-up.

They are: Allo Darlin', Ballboy, Boy Genius, Cineplexx, Foxes!, The Just Joans, The Loves, MJ Hibbett & the Validators, Sarandon, Shrag, The Smittens, Standard Fare, The Sunny Street and White Town. Woo! You can read more about the bands on the Indietracks artist page.

Of course, we've still got tons more bands to announce, so do look out for announcements on here, as well as on our website, Facebook page, MySpace and Twitter. And don't forget, you can also join our mailing list.

Tickets will be on sale shortly, and we hope to be able to announce more details very soon!

Become an Indietracks volunteer!

Photo by Andrew Bulhak

As the festival grows in size we have decided to expand our team, and this year we are looking for volunteers for two positions - stewards and stage assistants.

Stewards
All stewards will work shifts and, where required, will be directing festival goers to the site, assisting with ticketing and wristbanding and stewarding the site. Some festival experience is an asset but not necessary.

Stage Assistants
We are looking for enthusiastic individuals with some experience of stage management, either at festival or gig level. This would be an ideal position for an events management student looking for some work experience, or someone with experience who wants to assist in the running of the festival. Each volunteer will work in pairs, managing each stage. This will involve meeting the bands from arrival to the site, helping them find their way around, making sure the bands are ready on time, and collecting their PRS forms.

For both positions:
You must be able to arrive on site by midday Friday 23rd July for induction and site preparation and be available to work throughout the days on 24th and 25th July.

Ideally we are looking for people who would be prepared to work from 12pm to 10pm each day (with breaks), although we may split shifts. We would also appreciate volunteers who are able take a flexible approach to the role. You will be expected to work for one full day and have one day off (although you’re welcome to work both!)

In return you get:
*The chance to get involved with a unique festival with a growing reputation
*Experience of working at a festival for your CV
*Free entry into the festival
*Free camping if required
*Food and drink vouchers (only for use in the railway buffet)

Please note you will have to make your own way to and from the festival site.

Volunteers application form:

Please download an application form here and, once you've completed it, send it to indietracksvolunteers@gmail.com If you would like to apply to work with a friend, mention this in the comments and we’ll do our best to make it happen.
If you have any questions, also e-mail us at this address and we’ll do our best to answer them.

Fancy running an activity at Indietracks?

(Photo: Fabric Nation)

Hello everyone, can you believe it's 2010 already? We've only just packed up our Christmas trees and finished off all our remaining mince pies, and it's already time to start planning this year's Indietracks! We know you all need something to look forward to during these cold and freezing winter nights, so we thought we'd ask you to help us to organise some Indietracks-related fun now! This year's festival will take place on 23-25 July 2010, and we’ll hopefully have some exciting news about tickets very shortly!

One of the most brilliant things about last year's festival was the workshops, which included a range of brilliant activities from Tatty Devine's glam jewellery-making workshop, to Sean Fortuna Pop's masterclass in How to Run a Record Label. We're really keen to run these again, so please do get in touch if you're interested in getting involved.

We’ll find you a suitable area – maybe even a section of steam train – and, of course, you will have a free ticket to the festival.

If you would like to submit an application please read the small print below and send an email to indietracksalice@gmail.com containing the following information:

* Who you are - and website if applicable

* Have you run a workshop before?

* What your workshop will be about

* Will you charge for your workshop?

* Have you been to Indietracks before? Any interesting stories to divulge?
_____________________________________________________
Small print

*You must provide all materials to run the workshop with, Indietracks have nothing!

*You can charge for people to do the workshop but it must be cheap (less than £5) and the money should only be used to cover materials and not be your beer money!

*You will receive two festival passes per workshop.

*You will be able to sell your stuff on a stall at the festival over the weekend. We charge a standard merchant fee for a stall - details on costs and the application process are available on request.

*In 2009 the workshops attracted a large number of children, and we are keen to keep the workshops child friendly. We are open to suggestions for workshops specifically aimed at children too.

*The application submission deadline is 1st March 2010, and we will let the lucky applicants know within the month.

______________________________________________________

NB!! Last year Tatty Devine designed a special range of Indietracks-themed jewellery, which is now heavily discounted in their New Year sale. To take a look, visit their website.

Indietracks nominated in the European Festival Awards!

Thanks again to everyone who voted for us in the recent UK Festival Awards, and a big congratulations to La Casa Azul again for winning the Critics' Choice award for his magnificent headline set!

If that wasn't exciting enouugh, we have now been nominated for Best Small Festival in the European Festival Awards. To vote for us, visit the awards website, scroll down and click on the "Best Small Festival" category, entering your details. Voting closes on December 16.

Everyone who takes part in voting is eligible for the draw to win two VIP tickets to every winning festival from the awards!

After voting closes, the final shortlists will be announced and people can vote again to decide the overall winners in each category. The final winners will then be announced at a ceremony in Groningen, in the Netherlands in January - exciting!

Thanks again for all your support!

La Casa Azul win UK Festival Award!

(La Casa Azul on the outdoor stage at Indietracks 2009. Photo: _light )

Last night La Casa Azul won the Virtual Festivals Critics Choice award at the UK Festival Awards for their performance at this year's Indietracks festival!!

The Critics Choice nominees were initially selected by Virtual Festivals and then voted on by the public, so thank you very, very much to everyone that voted for La Casa Azul. Other nominees in La Casa Azul's category included The Specials, Pet Shop Boys, ZZ Top and The Prodigy, so many congratulations to Guille Milkyway and Elefant Records!

Next year's Indietracks festival will take place on the weekend of 23 to 25 July, and we really hope you will all be able to come along.

In the meantime, to bring back some 2009 memories, here's a clip from La Casa Azul's award-winning (!) Indietracks performance:

Indietracks shortlisted for two awards!

Thanks to everyone who voted for us in the UK Festival Awards recently. We can now announce that Indietracks has reached the final round in two categories - Best Small Festival and also the Virtual Festivals Critics' Choice Award for La Casa Azul's headline performance - hurray!

Voting is now live in the final round to decide the overall winners. If you have voted already, your votes will be carried over but you can also vote again, for a final time, at www.festivalawards.com

It only takes 20 seconds to vote, and you can also win a pair of VIP tickets to every winning festival next year.

Voting closes on November 4, and the winners will be announced at an awards ceremony at the O2 on November 19.

Thanks again to everyone for all your support!

Vote for us in the UK Festival Awards!

Indietracks has been nominated in five categories in the 2009 UK Festival Awards, including two special critics’ choice nominations for La Casa Azul's and MJ Hibbett's fantastic performances - hurray!

If you enjoyed Indietracks and fancy helping us out, it would be great if you could cast us a vote or two. If enough of you vote, we may have a fair chance of coming away with Best Small Festival, Best Family Festival or the Grassroots Festival award. And it would be even more wonderful if MJ Hibbett or La Casa Azul picked up awards!

Voting for Indietracks will really help to raise the profile of the Midland Railway charity, who host the festival every year and work tirelessly (and on a voluntary basis) to make sure everything runs smoothly. And boosting the profile of Indietracks will also help us out when we're asking some of the bigger indiepop names to play next year.

It only takes 20 seconds to vote, and you can also win a pair of VIP tickets to every winning festival next year.

If you’d like to vote, please visit the Indietracks nomination page before 14 October. If you are having difficulty using the website, you can also visit www.festivalawards.com and vote there. You'll need to visit the drop-down menus on Best Small Festival, Grassroots Festival, Best Toilets, the Virtual Festivals Critics' Choice Award and Best Family Festival drop-down menus to vote for us.

The final shortlists will then be revealed and people can vote again for the final winners. Thank you!

A short film of Indietracks 2009

We've just discoved this fantastic new video / documentary made at the Indietracks festival for Efestivals.

There's some amazing live footage of lots of the bands, some glorious shots of the festival site and the trains, and interviews with lots of the bands, Norman Blake, Stuart Indietracks, Luis from Elefant, staff and loads of festival-goers.

We've tried embedding it below, but if that doesn't work, see it directly here: Efestivals Indietracks film

Indietracks from eFestivals on Vimeo.