Just when we were about to announce that we’re adding an extra day to Left of the Dial, specifically for Rotterdam artists, Iggy Pop mentioned his love for our city in his BBC6 radio show. Sometimes things come together in an unexpected way.
The extra festival day is on Wednesday 21 October. Only Rotown and Bar3 will be open and the lineup will consist entirely of Rotterdam-based bands. The evening is free for everyone who already has a Left of the Dial ticket. (However, because capacity is limited, you’ll still need to reserve an additional ticket, free of charge)
The main reason we’re adding an extra night is that we felt bad about a decision we made a long time ago. Although, it made sense at the time.
At Left of the Dial, we try to introduce audiences to artists they might not normally get the chance to see live. At first, most of our ticketholders came from Rotterdam and the surrounding area, so we tried to give them loads of foreign bands to get to know. After all, they could catch most local bands in venues nearby throughout the year. So, it seemed like a perfectly good reason to keep those local artists to a minimum.
Nowadays, more and more ticketholders come from abroad, including a wide variety of music professionals who can open doors to more shows, record deals, and all the other things that help build a career in music. All those people rarely get the chance to see Rotterdam artists, so to put it a bit dramatic: we’re basically denying our own local community the chances we offer bands from further away. We may not be too fond of chauvinism, but this is kind of the other end of the spectrum.
Now, we could simply have started putting more Rotterdam artists on the lineup, but we felt that, to make up for lost time, we should give our local stars some extra spotlight this year. But that’s not the only reason we decided to add the Wednesday specifically.
Like we said, the festival attracts quite a few music professionals, and many of them prefer to check out bands on a Wednesday rather than on a Saturday. Simply because their jobs already have them travelling and attending shows constantly, and every now and then it’s nice to spend a weekend at home. So that’s another good motivation to start a day earlier.
But all said and done, it’s an experiment. We have no idea yet whether adding a local focused Wednesday is something you’ll be excited about. Maybe Rotown will be at capacity in no time, or maybe the only people there will be the Left of the Dial team. Both are very possible. But there’s only one way to find out, so we figured we’re just going to give it a try this year.
(If you already have
your Left of the Dial 2026 ticket, you’ll receive instructions on how to claim
your free additional ticket soon.)
Big love,
The
local supporters of Left of the Dial
