Clockenflap moving to Central Harbourfront, and it’s set to be bigger than ever

Clockenflap, Hong Kong’s biggest annual music and arts festival, will move to the Central Harbourfront this November, organisers announced on Wednesday as they revealed the first wave of acts signed up for this year’s event.

The festival had been staged at the West Kowloon Cultural District site since 2011, but now has to make way for the construction of arts and cultural facilities planned for the waterfront Kowloon site.

Organisers say the new Central venue could be even bigger than the space in Kowloon used for the festival, and will have the same capacity. About 60,000 people attended last year’s festival.

“We’re really excited this year to be right in the heart of the city, as central as it gets,” says Mike Hill, CEO of Magnetic Asia, Clockenflap’s parent company.

“There’s a lot more space right all along the harbourfront than many people realise. There is the Central Harbourfront Event Space of course, and we will be fully utilising that, though we are also working very closely with various government departments to ensure that we have at least the same amount of space and the same capacity that we had last year.”

The first acts announced for this year’s festival – to be held from November 25-27 – include Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Ros, British indie rockers Foals, Taiwanese singer-songwriter Cheer Chen and Canadian experimental outfit Crystal Castles.

Clockenflap has evolved from its humble beginnings as a small, two-stage festival launched at Cyberport in 2008 into one of Asia’s top music festivals, and has been acclaimed by British music publication NME for the “pioneering role it has played in nurturing the Chinese indie and alternative music scenes, as well as bringing international talent to Chinese audiences”.