The inside scoop on Outer Town

The east Bristol festival built on grassroots culture and community spirit isn’t expanding in its fifth year.

Instead, says founder Harry Dodson, the plan is to “perfect what we’ve got already”. And what they’ve got is a medieval fantasy world, a ‘Most Tremendous Vegetable’ competition, a bunch of vibrant independent venues and a long list of the hottest new acts.

“We didn’t want Outer Town to be just another multi-venue festival,” says Harry Dodson of the music all-dayer set to take over nine independent venues, pubs and shops along Old Market with its fifth edition in April.

“Bristol has enough of those. We wanted to make it feel a bit different.”

Outer Town’s hub is at Trinity, where zines, clothes, art and other alt wares are on sale – photo: Wil Denneman

While he happily admits he “just kind of went for it” at the beginning, Dodson says the one thing he did know was that he wanted the festival to feel like a proper event.

After trying out various themes, including outer space and psychedelia, the team hit on a medieval setting and it just stuck.

Last year’s Outer Town lore – illustrated in a dedicated festival zine – detailed the curse of a malevolent marsh giant that turned Old Market into a sprawling wetland, forcing the domain’s King Marvyn to retreat to castle Trinity and leave his subjects to fend for themselves. A disturbing tale, it gave pre- modernity post-dystopian energy with a distinct undercurrent of TBC.

They left us hanging for a year but, Dodson says, the storyline is not only back but also bigger for 2026. It’s a relief to hear those marshes have been drained and the city returned to abundance.

Will King Marvyn make a reappearance this year or will he be too busy conjuring up the most tremendous vegetable – photo: Ursula Billington

The festival coincides with a great fair, with citizens pitting their biggest vegetables against each other while King Marvyn’s underhanded attempts to win the competition have “terrifying” results.

The Undergrowth Collective are helping with set design, roaming characters and immersive elements to bring the fantasy world to life.

And that’s before we’ve even got to the lineup.

Dodson doesn’t want to pigeonhole the acts he selects and says he’s “really bad” at describing music but he’s clearly got the ears for it with bands on previous bills, including Opus Kink, Grandmas House, Ditz, Langkamer, Knives, Snapped Ankles, Flamingods and Getdown Services, going on to find success following an Outer Town appearance.

Skydaddy played at the Ill Repute in 2025 and is running a works in progress stage at To the Moon this year – photo: Ursula Billington

Originally a DIY promoter, he was excited by the scene created in the wake of Idles’ success when “Bristol was really popping off…the city had a spotlight on it,” and chose emerging “post punk leaning” bands from the underground for Outer Town’s first edition.

“Though I hate using that term, it feels so vague!” he cringes. Nowadays, “there’s not really one genre that ties OT together, it’s whatever is good and current,” he says, recommending Bristol bands The Cindys, Horsefair and The Scuttlers, and Ninush, Brown Horse, Honeyglaze and Truthpaste from further afield as ones to watch this year.

Dodson also namechecks Skydaddy’s stage at To the Moon which has previously programmed Geese, Katy J Pearson, Rozi Plain and more.

The lineup features quality artists trying out new work but, more importantly, flagging curation by other local promoters – Below the Belt and Green Stage are also running stages – is an integral part of Dodson’s ethos: “Promoters are building their own scenes. If I can spread awareness of people doing that it’s only going to benefit the local scene.

“It’s important to keep the music scene flowing. And they have their eyes in different corners of Bristol that maybe I don’t see. It’s just bringing more minds into it.”

This generous spirit has permeated the festival’s atmosphere, where artists performing will spend the rest of the day going to gigs, and punters and band members happily mingle.

“Everybody’s there for the same reason,” says Dodson. “It’s a supportive community, whether it’s bands trying to find other artists they can tour with or support, or people finding new bands they love. It’s definitely the people that tie the whole thing together.”

At five years old Outer Town can no longer call itself a fresh face on Bristol’s scene but, despite three years of sell outs, there’s no sense of complacency.

The festival has built a solid, supportive community where bands and audience mingle outside gigs – photo: Orlaith Jane

“I treat every year as the last because you never know how it’s going to go,” says Dodson, coming up for air from one of the wealth of spreadsheets that occupy his every waking moment in the runup.

If previous years are anything to go by, Outer Town has nothing to worry about.

Outer Town takes place in and around Old Market on April 11. Find out more at outertownfest.com

Main photo: @_ev_1997_