So Long, Good Friday is an all-day music event in Liverpool on – you guessed it – Good Friday (April 3, 2026). It’s an event focused on community, affordability, and promoting up-and-coming alternative acts, whether they’re from across the globe or down the road. It also has some established heavy-hitters: Fat Dog, The Orielles, Brigitte Calls Me Baby, to name but three. I had the chance to chat to one of the organisers, Craig McVeigh, about their uniquely timed festival.
Where did the idea come from to start this festival?
Tom and I, who’s the other booker for the festival, we both have our own promotion companies in Liverpool and we’ve both booked other festivals in the past. And we’re both from Liverpool.
We both work in that world, with those acts, and we thought, Liverpool is crying out for something like this. We wanted to put an event together where all those bands could live, an alternative to keep up with what’s happening in the North West.
And it be affordable as well. That was really important for us because, although there are loads of events happening at the moment, which are brilliant, sometimes they get a bit carried away and become a little bit more inaccessible for new music fans.
You’ve got bands like Fat Dog on the lineup who are doing well all around the UK at the moment. And Brigitte Calls Me Baby and acts like that, but we wanted to be able to showcase some of the smaller acts who probably don’t get the opportunity as easily.
I think if you’re buying a ticket for So Long, Good Friday, you’re getting good value because there’s a couple of acts on there that make it make sense. We’ve curated the lineup, we’ve taken our time and thought whether these acts will work together.
We don’t want to just throw up 50 random acts. We want people to be able to jump in and out of venues all day, seeing all the acts. Not just thinking, “I’ll just come down for Fat Dog and that’s it.”
That tends to be the way with a lot of festivals. The Courteeners headlined a festival that I went to over the summer and people just rocked up for that set, and then only waited for one song from their first album. Why would you spend that much money just to listen to one song?
But with the selection of acts that you’ve chosen, was it important to get a nice wide range of genres?
Yeah, definitely. We were cautious not to spread out too far, but we wanted the genres that will be at the festival to work together.
And it’s been satisfying because since we’ve put it out, obviously we’ve worked for so long on this. It’s been a year in the making, which people probably don’t see behind the scenes. We have to get the venues, booking the acts takes a long time, the artwork, everything.
But when we bring everything together, we’re starting to program each venue and try and make it make sense. And like I say, it was satisfying when we put it out. People have said that it’s great to see a festival with so many acts that make sense . Well, we’re not calling it a festival so much as an all-dayer, really.
it was important to us to put a load of different acts on there. There’s an act called JJ Bull. I don’t know if you’ve listened to him, but he’s a comedy musician, he makes songs about football and it’s absolutely brilliant. When the agent or the management offered us that, we had a listen and thought it was amazing, because you don’t see enough fun or chaos on a festival stage.
In the past, even when we’ve been booking other events, you start to go with what’s working, who’s coming up, sort of thing. But acts like JJ Bull, when you go to a festival and you watch someone like him, it’ll be a real moment for people. It’s not what you’d expect. Absolute fun.
Little bookings like that, people will appreciate after the event. Maybe not so much now, because they don’t know him yet, but things like that are great.
Bands like Monks in Liverpool, they really encapsulate what we’re trying to do with the event. We’re trying to bring up local bands as well, like them, Pevova. There’s a band called Kissing People. They’re from Liverpool, been in loads of great bands before, and this is actually their first Liverpool show. We’re trying to bring in the regional, international, but we’re also trying to bring up the local scene as well in the North West.
Do you think that, as a multi-venue day festival, So Long, Good Friday creates a level playing field for acts of different sizes and different popularity? Do you think it puts them on a level pegging because they’re not relegated to a tiny tent at the bottom of the field like they might be at a festival?
Yeah, I suppose it does. Obviously, the bigger acts are always on a little bit later, but what I love about these multi-venue festivals is that all the venues are pretty much a street over from each other. I don’t know if you’ve been to the Baltic Triangle in Liverpool, but you can wander in and out. And that was one of the things we wanted, everything close together, nice and easy. You wander out of one venue, you can go into a next.
It’ll be first come, first serve when you’re getting in, too. You might be going to a venue, “oh that’s absolutely packed, let me jump in another and have a look.” That’s what’s so good about these types of festivals. There are no tiny stages.
It’s been the story for the past however long that venues are closing everywhere. Venues are struggling, especially independent ones. What is the scene like in terms of venues in Liverpool? Is it healthy?
Liverpool’s got a good collection of venues. As I said before, it’s focused on the Baltic Triangle. There’s a couple of venues there like District, who’ve been around forever. They’re a real staple on the Liverpool music scene. And the owners, they’ve helped everyone come up, so it’ll be very nice to give something back to them, to help bring new visitors in. Camp and Furnace, great venue. Hangar 34, same with Kitchen Street.
They’ve been there for years; they’re staples on the Liverpool music scene. If anything, it’s good that we can give back and bring another event to the area. But in general, the Liverpool music venues, they’re all doing well.
There’s a few that disappear every couple of years, which is really sad, but we feel like we’ve chosen the right area for this event purely because there’s so many venues focused in that area. And it’s great to have them all involved under one banner.
Can you talk a little bit about why you decided on the name? I’m not sure there’s many Good Friday-themed music events anywhere.
The name came from Tom, the other booker on the event. He came to me just before Good Friday last year, and told me that we should do an event on Good Friday. It’s as simple as that. We thought we should do it all day on Good Friday. And it was born: So Long, Good Friday.
It always works well because it’s a time where everyone’s off. It’s always good time in the musical calendar, too, because bands are out and there’s not too many other all-day events around that time.
Sometimes, the simple things are the best things, aren’t they? It just comes to you quick and easy.
Looking to the future, is this something that’s going to happen every year? Do you see it growing outside of Liverpool perhaps?
Right now, we’re just thinking about this first year, but the plan is that we want to keep doing this each year in Liverpool. Whether it goes elsewhere, we couldn’t really say that at the moment. The definite plan is to make this a staple for the Liverpool alternative music community, and for people travelling in for it.
I notice some guitars hanging up on Craig’s wall, and we start chatting about our own musical endeavours. Somehow, we end up at Manchester’s Free Trade Hall in 1976, at Sex Pistols’ infamous gig.
Gigs are a way to spark new musicians into being. If you have loads of acts in the same area, you’re creating a catalyst for new music as well as just supporting the bands that are already playing as well, aren’t you?
Yeah, definitely. Hopefully, that can happen, and it does happen. Loads of people get into bands off watching live music, don’t they? So hopefully, that’s one of the outcomes of So Long, Good Friday.
We want to build a good community and the music scene, it’s important. Especially, giving back to the venues, but also having something a little bit more affordable. I think that’s been one of the hardest things for us, making sure the event doesn’t go over to that point where people are asked too much.
Has there been any new artists that you’ve seen since you’ve been booking that you might have liked to have gotten for the festival?
Yeah, there’s a couple. There was a band called The Orchestra (For Now). Brilliant band. They’re based in London. Absolutely amazing band. And there’s a band from America called They Are Gutting a Body of Water. That’s a great band as well.
I could probably keep you here all day with bands I like. Those two specifically, we would’ve loved to have had them on this year.
We’ll have to wait and see if The Orchestra (For Now) or They Are Gutting a Body of Water will make it onto next year’s lineup, but if you want tickets to this year’s So Long, Good Friday, grab them here.
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