Adelaide Festival Centre's Adelaide Guitar Festival Presents GUITARS IN BARS 2017

After a brilliant inaugural season in 2016, Guitars in Bars is back to brighten venues and public spaces around the state from 14 - 30 July. Online venue registrations to host a guitar-based live music event will open on 10 April, and close on 14 May, via www.guitarsinbars.com.au.

Created as part of the biennial Adelaide Guitar Festival, Guitars in Bars is a stand-alone annual event, continuing both to celebrate the live music scene in the city, metro and regional areas, and to further develop and encourage relationships between local musicians and venues. Guitars in Bars will again be a part of MusicSA's Umbrella: Winter City Sounds program.

In 2017 Guitars in Bars will offer a match-making service for individual artists, groups and venues that are looking to organise gigs. Connecting venues and artists is an important part of this program and registrations for this service can also be made via the Guitars in Bars website.

Performances can be either free entry or ticketed at the venue's discretion, with Adelaide Festival Centre supplying "Guitars in Bars" venue signage, an online/printed program of all events, and providing overall marketing support.

2016 saw the collective strumming of more than 277 events, at over 100 pubs, bars, clubs and live music venues.

"From The Gov and the Grace Emily to the Victor Harbor Hotel and Port Noarlunga Arts Centre, venues all over embraced Guitars in Bars last year and we could not have been more thrilled with artistic and public support," Adelaide Guitar Festival Artistic Director Slava Grigoryan said.

"As registrations for 2017 approach and in an alternating year from the Adelaide Guitar Festival, we're more determined than ever to keep local venues full. We warmly encourage any public space with a live music licence to apply - the more creative, the better - and we're here to help venues put it all together.'

As an added incentive, Slava will select a local Guitars in Bars artist to open for a headliner of the next Adelaide Guitar Festival, to be held in August 2018.

Adelaide Festival Centre CEO and Artistic Director Douglas Gautier says "Our accreditation as a UNESCO Creative City of Music continues to hold strong through events such as Guitars in Bars, and it is a credit to Adelaide's highly accomplished and eclectic musical scene that last year's event was such a resounding success.'

Umbrella: Winter City Sounds also runs from 14 - 30 July 2017, and offers city dwellers an exciting smorgasbord of curated live music projects to warm and illuminate the colder weeks.

The biennial Adelaide Guitar Festival is the most significant festival of its kind held in the Southern Hemisphere, and brings masterful artists from around the world together with some of the best Australian musicians to deliver an eclectic and entertaining program of events. The festival is made up of performances, free and low cost workshops, master classes, artist talks, panel discussions and programs for emerging musicians.