Swanage Blues Festival enters new era with largest line-up yet

By Andrew Smith 26 September 2025, 6:00 am

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Simon and Toni Darrington took over Swanage blues festival on the death of their stepfather in 2024

The future of Swanage Blues Festival in Dorset has been assured after the children of its founder committed to an annual autumn weekend of the best in blues music – just as their father envisaged.

Simon and Toni Darrington took over the reins of the festival last summer after their father Steve died unexpectedly, and said at the time they would be back for the 25th anniversary festival in 2025.

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The Adam Sweet Band, one of a number of emerging artists who will help to keep the festival feeling fresh

Ready to put their stamp on the event

But having made a mistake about the year their father retired to Swanage, Simon and Toni have realised that the silver anniversary won’t arrive until 2026, and have already put that event in their calendar to organise.

Although their first full year of putting on one of the most popular blues festivals along the South Coast has not been plain sailing, the siblings have managed to increase both the number of bands and venues taking part and are ready to put their own stamp on the event.

This year, 77 gigs will be held over 19 venues in Swanage and its villages and the line up will include half a dozen bands who have been nominated in several categories of the UK Blues awards, including Thomas Heppell, Neil Sadler, The Milk Men, Robin Bibi, Guy Tortora and The Terraplanes.

And two new bands both nominated in the UK Blues Awards emerging act of the year category, the Adam Sweet Band, and Kirris Riviere and The Delta du Bruit will also appear to keep the festival feeling fresh.

Simon and Toni Darrington are committed to the festival for the forseeable future

“We’ve committed to future of the festival”

Simon Darrington said:

“We made a mistake with our publicity – after announcing it was going to be the 25th anniversary, we had to send a correction out. It’s 25 years since our father moved to Swanage, so 2026 will be the silver jubilee and we will have to do it over again.

“But we have committed to the future of the festival for the foreseeable future. This has been the first one we have done from scratch ourselves and we still had a lot to sort out.

“We have a new logo and website, we have been really busy and we still feel a bit like headless chickens at the moment, but we are getting there and hopefully next year will be a much easier ride for us.

“We have dropped the March event as we haven’t got it in us to do two festivals a year, and they were essentially replicas of each other which may have been splitting the audience – I think we would rather concentrate our efforts on one and make it as good as we can.”

Hugh Budden and the Blue Chords opened the 2024 festival at the Legion with a toast to Steve Darrington

“Too many bands want to play!”

Simon added:

“Our main issue is that we have too many bands who want to play at the festival, it is obviously very popular with the musicians.

“It is no problem at all for us to fill the schedule, but it does mean we have had to find extra venues. We have increased both the number of gigs and venues for 2025, but that did come with some challenges.

“Because Swanage is – in the nicest way! – geographically challenging for people to come and do one gig, to make it worth their while they want to do several, often switching between bands.

“We are trying to squeeze more bands into venues which previously had only one or two gigs and by finding new venues, we have been able to expand the programme.”

Cheese and wine bar The Arches intends to join the Blues Festival for its opening weekend

New cheese and wine bar

New town centre cheese and wine bar The Arches hopes to celebrate its opening weekend with blues gigs by Ben White and Keith Kenny, while the Village Inn at Ulwell campsite is another new venue, hosting Devil’s Avocado and Jon Walsh Blues Dogs.

Bay View holiday park is rejoining the blues festival family after a few years away following Covid, with four bands playing over the weekend – the Geoff Garbow Band, Fabulous Fez Heads, Fabulous Duck Brothers and Paul Cook, while the Old Harry Bar in Studland also joins the roster, hosting the McClean Gang.

A number of well known regulars will be back for the festival, including Hugh Budden, Zoe Schwarz, Back Porch, Blue Touch, Chicago 9, and Pete Harris, but Simon has also included an experimental indo blues fusion band, Blues Dharma, which has Indian instruments backing a lead blues guitar.

And the price of an access all areas wristband has been kept at £15 for the weekend, and are available to buy from all participating venues as well as Swanage Information Centre.

A new logo and a new era for the Swanage Blues Festival

Wristband price held at £15

Simon Darrington said:

“It’s not compulsory to have a wristband, our father’s philosophy was that he didn’t want to charge locals to listen to music in their own pubs – and anyway, if it was compulsory to have a wristband we would have to pay for security in 19 venues, which would break the bank!

“Wristbands provide visual proof of your donation and enable festival fans to recognise each other throughout the town. You can buy one a day or only one for the weekend, it’s up to you, but it is our way of delivering a top quality festival.

“They have been priced at £15 for quite a while now, although we think we will have to push it up next year. Most of the bands are asking for more money and most of the venues have a limited budget, so we top up the fees quite a lot from the wristband contributions.

“But if you were to go to a club you would be looking to pay £15 for one blues gig alone and even if it does have to go up next year, it will still be incredibly good value for the quality lineup that we can deliver over four days.

“Toni and I are honoured to have been given this opportunity to continue our father’s legacy, and we both look forward to delivering brilliant programmes of amazing artists for Swanage Blues Festival for many years.”