Press Quotes
Offset Festival has a gleaming reputation, a stylish and intelligent clientele and fantastic line-ups. Even the weather is on its side.
This is Fake DIY
Offset Festival: 2 days in Essex, plenty of bands to see from the unusual No Bra to the headliners The Horrors and everything in-between - Offset has to be the coolest festival this summer. It actually felt that this weekend was the last weekend of summer. Let’s get one thing out of the way first, there was no mud, no rain, no wellies, no rain coats. Although in true indie-kid style, Barbour Jackets seem to be making a comeback, but only if you couple them with retro ray-bans.
Artrocker
The general consensus for Offset would be "more of this kind of thing, please"
Drowned in Sound
Offset is the self-styled refusenik of the boutique festivals. Set up specifically to cock a snook at the proliferation of unimaginative and overly commercial festivals, it laughs in the face of conformity.
Clash
This is Offset Festival, year one, the best alternative line-up of the summer. There’ll be no Ting Tings here, just 190 underexposed bands, most of which are keeping art rock’s soul a healthy colour of pink.
NME Magazine, 2008
"We're gonna try something new here...so, when I say 'Hai', you say 'nault'; when I say 'Hainault', you say 'via Newbury Park'". Now, that'll mean nothing to the vast majority of you, but Metronomy's Joe Mount has fully grasped the principle of Offset: a festival so east London you can make jokes about the Tube and people will actually laugh. Making Field Day look about as cutting edge as V, Offset combines Shoreditch's premier back-room darlings and the cult favourites that spawned them in one achingly hip melée. It's final proof that when you scratch below the stylised surface, there's a hell of a lot more substance to be found underneath... how apt.
NME Magazine, 2009
A mindblowing day of music
Muso's Guide
Now in its second year, Offset is a festival that's easy to love: small, rural, and London-dwellers can get to it on the tube. Much more important is its sensible booking policy, to "join the dots between new bands and their influences", so potentially there's something here for everyone - as long as that everyone is vaguely open-minded.
The Guardian
Before we start to tell you how great this year’s Offset Festival is going to be, please, read these “seven things we loved about Offset” we wrote down after the first Offset Festival last year. Then you’ll understand why this festival is one of our favourite picks of the summer. For everyone else here comes another long explaination why you should love this festival...
Aufgemischt
...the bizarre sort of niche event which may prosper among the apparently standardized interchangeable festival fare
The Guardian
Ta-da! A refreshingly unique bill, in a handy yet beautiful location just 30 minutes from London in the heart of Hainault forest.
Time Out Festival Guide
Offset is a brilliant summer festival that celebrates excellent bands from the past, as well as the skinny-jeaned usurpers looming on the horizon.
The Times
...one of the hottest new music festivals of the summer...a miniature gem
The Sun
I honestly cannot remember another event where I have seen so many bands in such a short space of time...there have been some of those magical moments that only happen when hundreds of disparate, hopeful people mass together in a field through the erratic English summer to watch a band either on top of their game or suddenly realising that they are on their way up. We have certainly had these at Offset. Let’s hope this brilliant boutique festival will be with us for many years to come.
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