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The Liverpool Sound City is an annual music festival in Liverpool, England. The festival, founded in 2008, is already noted as the largest international music, digital and film festival in the UK. Other festivals, such as New York Sound City, have been inspired by this event. Liverpool Sound City consistently showcases more than 300 musicians/bands, who have the opportunity to perform in one of 25 venues, as well as music industry professionals, and experts within other art forms. The festival is known for staging up-and-coming performers rather than solely top-ranked artists, which brings in more than 40,000 fans; for example, previous years have included acts from Florence and the Machine, The Maccabees and Ed Sheeran. Recently, Liverpool Sound City has expanded to include: conference discussions, film programs, photography, and a soccer match.

2014 Festival
The 2014 festival is scheduled to take place during the weekend of May 1-3.

Conference
“The Sound City conference is not here to educate, but to inspire.” The Music, Digital, Art and Film discussion features some of the most influential people from modern industries. This year, the key themes for the conference are the business of music, football, and style. In previous years, representatives from Warner Music Group, Live Nation, Universal Records, and Domino Recording Company graced the discussion panel. This year the festival has recruited John Cale from The Velvet Underground and Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth, as well as Jerome Champagne, and Rick Parry as keynote speakers.

Attractions
Screenadelica is as a ‘pop-up’ gallery that is known for “celebrating the art of the screen printed gig poster.” The Gallery travels across England, Europe, and farther promoting music. The main purpose of Screenadelica is to support the influential musicians in our world, as well as the artists/bands performing at the festival themselves, and previous performers. The key feature of Screenadelica is that each poster that is exhibited, is exclusive to each artist, and exclusive to each festival. The posters have a limited amount of copies, only 50 to 100 are printed, and they retail at the festival for approximately £30 each. Liverpool Sound City introduced a film program into the festival, in order to celebrate all art forms, rather than just music. This component of this festival consists of viewing music films and documentaries, as well as Q&A’s with directors/producers. This year, the main feature of the film program is titled “The Art of Pop Video” which is 100+ video clips put together to tell the story of the pop video, and is intended to showcase this type of medium’s contribution to popular culture. Other viewings include: Made in Birmingham (Director: Deborah Aston), Charlie Is My Darling (Andrew Loog Oldham), Turn It Up to Eleven 2: Wild Days (Presented by: KoreanIndie), Rolling Like a Stone, and Good Vibrations (Director: Lisa Barros D’Sa, Glenn Leyburn) Liverpool Sound City Match Day is an event that is exclusive to the festival. During this event, 16 teams are made of bands and industry professionals who compete in the “John Peel World Cup.” The funds raised from this match are donated to the British Heart Foundation, in memory of John Peel, whose two great loves were music and football. Along with the match, Liverpool FC Foundation volunteers to run football-coaching sessions for the children at the festival before the game. Photography is an important aspect when music is involved. Liverpool Sound City proclaims what David Bowie said; we are all waiting for “The Gift of Sound and Vision”, which is why it is important for the festival to incorporate visual and audio art forms. Not only are photos taken at the show, but also photographers are then given the opportunity to discuss their portfolios. It is important to have visual documentation of each festival, and Liverpool Sound City goes above and beyond by hiring local college and university photography students to document this, and give them a chance to gain experience and expand their personal portfolios.
 * Screenadelica
 * Film Program
 * LSC Match Day
 * Photography