Wrex
Fest
2025
22-23 August
August bank holidays in Wrexham always means one thing...WrexFest!
We first bumped into Brendan Griffiths, the lead festival organiser of WrexFest, some years ago when we previously attended a FOCUS Wales event.
WrexFest shares a similar structure of other musical Festivals like FOCUS Wales but is unique as it combines the arts, theatre, spoken word, the Welsh Language and the people of Wrexham and it retains a grass roots ethos and wants to be both distinct and original.
In their words WrexFest is the ‘social glue that bonds all these elements together’.
With dedicated spaces and venues hosting back-to-back gigs throughout the weekend, all within easy walking distance of each other, you’re spoilt for choice with your traditional 4-piece guitar led bands, solo performances and some exciting electronic genres – meaning a wide variety of musical tastes are all catered for.
Whilst we caught some of the gigs at the secondary sites around town which included The Magic Dragon and Y/The Lab, we spent most of our weekend over at The Rocking Chair, a dedicated two stage live music venue, housed in a former railway station.
The Scene stole the scene to begin for us on an opening Friday night, with phenomenal stage presence and powerful songs, and managed to deliver such a compelling performance that you could easily have imagined they would also bring the house down on a much bigger stage. One to watch out for, for sure.
Wrexham faithful Baby Brave always deliver on their home turf for their firm followers, and their set was of a very high standard as always. With some new material they showed off their maturing and developing sound and are always a lot of fun. We look forward to seeing them in town again in the near future.
Stealing Sheep had come down from Liverpool and headlined the Friday night with an electric acid pop themed creative set.
Saturday’s acts had a tough bar to beat. We started off with Pys Melyn from North Wales who delivered a cracking act, and we were excited to learn that there is more to come from them at next year’s FOCUS Wales.
Then the psychedelic theme really kicked into gear with Don Tageeva Monquiase and then the night peaked with a memorable set delivered by the legendary Ozric Tentacles.
Paint
Jam
IV
15-16 August
Visit Wrexham was tipped off on a Friday lunchtime to go down to the basement levels of Eagle’s Meadow car park where something special was starting. As we approached in the low-level light during the height of an August heatwave, the unmistakable aerosol paint fumes permeated the air ever so slightly, and we knew this is where something special was happening.
Over 25 artists from all over the UK had descended into town for the weekend to continue a special project of brightening up the darkest walls in one of the deepest darkest underground carparks in Wrexham.
We first met up with Kryme from Dundee who had done the redeye just that morning to get down in time for the kick-off, and despite the long journey he was fully charged and excited about the gathering and the weekend that lay ahead. The rest of the artists were also beginning to arrive around the same time as we met up with some for a brief chat about their projects. Everyone we met had amazing back stories and united in their ambition to brighten up urban places with some unique efforts and pieces, inspired by personal ideas and stories to them. Many of them regularly toured the UK working on other paint jams and we felt with no-one else around it was a privilege to share some time one-on-one with the artists. We got a sneak peek of their design process and plans that they had in mind for the weekend long installation.
Going up a level we then met Andy ‘Dime One’ Birch – a self-confessed ‘graffiti art geek’ who is based here in North Wales and this being his fourth instalment of the Wrexham Paint Jam, discovered that this is very much his passion and project and was the lead artist. Andy explained he had decades of works to his name dotted all over Wrexham and North Wales.
Andy shared with us the event wouldn’t be possible without the support of Rachel and the team who run Avant Cymru /The Lab based upstairs and the work that they do curating the content and planning the event.
