Love Supreme 2024 was a landmark year in the story of what has become Europe's largest outdoor festival.
After several years of development with Joe Baxter (Baxter PR), the festival successfully launched a partnership with the UK's largest commercial radio station: BBC Radio 2. This partnership involved extensive pre-event coverage on the station including a full breakfast show featuring the unlikely group of Olivia Dean, Sananda Maitreya and DJ Spoony in conversation with Zoe Ball. In addition to this Radio 2 took over the Saturday late-night programme on the "Supreme Standards" with Romesh Ranganathan and Martin2Smoove taking us through a history of Hip-Hop which had the crowd bouncing until DJ Spoony steered us into the early hours.
In 2024 the festival also looked to celebrate it's local connections, in particular with Brighton. As well as the return of the hugely popular New Generation Jazz stage (putting a spotlight on emerging and local talent) this year saw the beginnings of partnerships with Southern Rail and the Brighton born but now massively international fashion brand Lucy & Yak. Tying this all together was a refresh of creative assets with new video team Deadbeat films who produced this video highlighting the journey from Brighton to the festival and the names for the 2024 festival.
Within the line up the real stand out moments include the Texan Black Pumas on Sunday afternoon who captivated the South Downs stage crowds. For the purists, Japanese pianist Hiromi's performance with her Sonicwonder band will go down in festival history as an incredible moment as will Cécile McLorin Salvant's perfect vocal performance. Bringing a little New Orleans swagger to proceedings, Trombone Shorty made his long awaited first appearance at the festival on Saturday afternoon just after Sananda Maitreya (FKA Terance Trent D'Arby) made his first UK appearance in more than 20 years. Continuing the precendent set by Sister Sledge in 2022 and Candi Staton in 2023, Kool & The Gang fulfilled what is becoming the funk and soul "legends" slot on Sunday afternoon of the festival. Olivia Dean gave her debut festival headline performance looked every inch the ascendant star she has been proving herself to be over the past 18 months as she moved through hits from her stellar debut album, "Dive" and a couple of choice covers.
Find the full line up here.
The Love Supreme 2024 has been nominated for "Best Marketing Campaign" at the UK Festival Awards (winner announced 03/12/2024)
