New annual music event will celebrate the ‘City Sounds’ of Chichester

City Sounds has been created by Chichester resident Chris Simmons, a professional musician for more than 20 years.

People will be able to follow a musical map of the city and soak up the original sounds of musicians at a variety of venues across the city centre from 5pm until 10pm.

Chichester District Council is the main event partner and is helping to part-fund the event through money received from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.

“As an artist I’ve been very lucky to have shared a stage with artists such as Jackson Browne, Sir Tom Jones, Simply Red, James Bay, Paloma Faith and many others, as well as playing many major festivals across the globe,” explains Chris. “I am also very passionate about grassroots music and helping local culture grow.”

Chris was instrumental in turning Worthing’s St Paul’s Church into a flagship music venue, putting on its first run of concerts and encouraging acts such as Turin Brakes, Ocean Colour Scene and Chris Difford to play in the town for the very first time.

“I’m now a Chichester resident and I would love to try make a difference in enriching the live music scene in the city,” says Chris. “With City Sounds we want people to see and hear the wealth of talent in the city, and long term, we envisage this being an annual weekend event.

“The programme of artists has been designed to appeal to a wide range of people and there will be something for everyone. The event will give local artists a much-needed place to shine as well as eventually providing a focal point for our artistic community.”

Laurence Foord, Divisional Manager for Communications, Licensing and Events at Chichester District Council says: “We are extremely excited about this new event, which has once again been organised in response to demand from the public for more varied events in the district.

“We want to help attract people to come into the city for the first time and bring people back who haven’t visited for a while. The event organisers will also be working to engage local businesses and highlighting areas or venues in the city. We hope that people will come along and support the area’s music artists and enjoy the magic of live music.”

Venues on the night will be:

• The George and Dragon, North Street;• Trents, South Street;• The Escapist, Crane Street; and,• Little Monster, The Hornet.

For the full line-up of artists and bands performing and where, see www.citysoundslive.com