With Glastonbury taking a fallow year, music and festival fans looking for a summer festival fix are being invited to try something different, and head to Cornwall this June instead for the largest FREE nautical music festival in Europe. The Falmouth International Sea Shanty Festival returns from Friday 12th to Sunday 14th June with over 80 groups from across the world descending on the town for a jam-packed long weekend of jovial song, harbourside harmonies, salty shanties and deck stomping choruses.

The world-famous, award-winning Falmouth International Sea Shanty Festival is shaped by the town itself, a town that was recently included (with its cool neighbour Penryn) in The Sunday Times’ ‘Best Places To Live’ hotlist thanks to its ‘youthful creative vibe’ and offering ‘a fun life by the sea, where salty air, natural beauty and independent spirit come together.’ The hugely popular shanty event successfully brings the whole destination alive for three wholesome days, transforming the port’s many quaysides, pubs, cobbled streets and waterfront venues into a mass sing- along, as around 60,000 visitors enjoy traditional work songs of the sea performed everywhere from professionally engineered harbourside stages to bustling taverns and restaurants.

Once sung aboard sailing ships punctuated by the movement of physical work, sea shanties were designed to be loud, proud, simple, communal and easy to join in - qualities that explain their modern revival. Over the past 20+ years, the Falmouth International Sea Shanty Festival has played a major role in this salty resurgence, inspiring similar events in ports across Europe and North America and attracting a new generation of performers alongside traditional crews.

Since its humble beginning in 2004, the festival has grown into a major cultural event attracting over 60,000 visitors each year and making Falmouth the global capital of shanties. Today, the festival celebrates both the historic roots of maritime work songs and the expanding global community of diverse singers of all ages, and from all corners of the globe, keeping the tradition alive.

Over the years the shanty scene has continued to evolve, with a new generation of performers bringing fresh energy to the tradition. Alongside the more traditional, often male-dominated groups, there are now younger, female, LGBTQ+ and international performers taking up sea shanty singing in their own style, offering new interpretations while honouring the music’s heritage.

The festival will welcome back many familiar favourites, including Falmouth’s premier all-female sea shanty group, Acapella Moonshine, who have been performing at the event for 12 years. Another popular returning act is Femmes de la Mer, a 15-strong Cornish group formed ten years ago, who first appeared at the festival in 2015 and have since become regular performers at concerts across the UK. LGBTQIA+ sea shanty choir Seaweed in a Fruitlocker will be back for a third year with talented Plymouth-based artist, Rhys Morgan at the helm. Inspired by his upbringing in a rural, coastal community, where he felt both excluded and deeply intrigued by the seafaring songs of his region, he now has a 15+ strong group of wonderful queer choristers in the band. The repertoire consists of cleverly reworked sea shanties, using their shared collective life experiences to inspire new themes.

Festival Chair Richard Gates said, “For over twenty years, Falmouth has played host to the International Sea Shanty Festival, and it has grown into something far bigger than we ever imagined. What started as a handful of singers in the back room of a pub is now the largest free nautical music festival in Europe, with more than 60,000 visitors expected to be flowing into our global ‘shanty capital’ this year. When Glastonbury takes a break, this is a reminder that there are many kinds of festival in the UK, and there is nowhere in the world quite like Falmouth when the shanties start
to roll.”

Falmouth has a strong maritime history, a thriving independent business scene, a huge creative community and one of the most beautifu waterfront settings in the country. When the shanty festival arrives each year, all of that comes together. It’s why the event feels so authentic, and why people travel from all over the world to be there.

With performances from over 80 groups across multiple venues, visitors can expect a lively programme of music, atmosphere and maritime heritage throughout the town and its surrounding waterside villages. For more information, including the full schedule (to be announced shortly), visit www.falmouthseashanty.co.uk.