Station Sessions Festival at St Pancras proves to be a hit

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Top band, the Guillemots, opened the Station Sessions Festival at St Pancras International recently.

The band performed numbers including ‘I must be a lover,’ before a crowd of passengers, fans and shoppers.

Organised by High Speed One, Station Sessions is one of the only all-weather festivals in Britain.

“We are pleased to experiment and push the boundaries of what a station can be. Music always lends itself to St Pancras and we’ve found it works very well,” says Ben Ruse, Head of Media for High Speed One.

“Railways have a long history of busking so we decided to take it one step further. These station sessions provide a platform for new, largely unsigned, bands.”

Station Sessions started on Thursday nights and grew from there.

“Passengers like it and staff think it’s great. We’ve had great feedback and will certainly be doing it again,” Ben said.

Most interesting of all from a rudely commercial point of view public dwell time increases. This means passersby spend money at retailers and cafés. Even local book shops reported sales hikes as the bands played.

The Guillemots started the six week festival, which continued with Nerina Pallot and featured contributions from Kids in Glass Houses, Buster Shuffle, Stealing Sheep, Crowns and Emily in The Woods.

Over the summer the festival sees a number of big names and emerging talent playing at the station and at fringe stages at the Betjeman Arms, Searcys St Pancras Grand and Champagne Bar and Sourced Market.

Throughout the festival money is being raised for The Prince’s Trust.

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