AggroFest: Celebrating Friendship, Community, and Passion

The second edition of Aggro Fest made a triumphant return to Kettering on Saturday, July 29th, 2023. This heartfelt event is dedicated to honouring the life and legacy of our dear friend, Aaron Francis, who sadly departed from us last year. Aggro Fest is a joyous celebration of friendship, community, and a platform to showcase our passions.

This year, the festival embraced inclusivity, inviting people of all ages and from diverse backgrounds to join in on the festivities. Held at the scenic Ise Lodge Skatepark in Kettering, it provided the perfect setting for a day of fun and togetherness. Best of all, admission to the event was completely free.

A vibrant and talented lineup of over 12 artists graced the stage, including renowned performers like Geval, SexGerms, Bite wound, Feral Sate, and many others. Their performances filled the air with music and positive vibes, connecting attendees through shared passions and interests.

Throughout the day, live music echoed in the air, commencing at 12 noon. From the start until 2 PM, the performances took place indoors, sheltered in the scout hut due to the rain. As the weather gradually improved and the sun peeked through the clouds, the organisers made the wise decision to relocate the music to the skatepark.

Bands from various corners of the country travelled down to be a part of this vibrant celebration, adding their unique flavours to the musical experience. The live music extravaganza continued until 9 PM, with attendees revelling in the electrifying performances. Despite a slight delay caused by the rain, the event ran over time, allowing everyone to fully immerse themselves in the musical magic.

As well as having bands here where a few Graffiti artists that came down to paint the park Graffiti artists such as eeizuu and many others.

The event welcomed all wheels, embracing participants on inliners, scooters, skateboards, and quads with open arms. However, it was disheartening to see that only a few BMX riders showed up to join in.

In a remarkable collaboration, this year's event partnered with Zions Community Kitchen, introducing a delectable array of tasty vegan food to delight the attendees.

The event received generous sponsorship from SkateHut, Illicit, and Three Amigo Skate Shop. SkateHut, in particular, hosted an exciting mid-event raffle exclusively for skateboarders, while Streetwise contributed some fantastic prizes for scooter Riders.

The Street Wise crew, being locals to the park, made a special appearance at the event. It was a pleasure to reunite with them, especially after conducting an interview with them back in March. We had the opportunity to catch up with Harry Bridgen and Jamie Weir, getting their insights and thoughts on the event. 

“One of best moments from the day had to be the bite wound set as the energy in the park was immense as everyone got involved, the band's stage presence was nuts so everyone was going all out both in the pit and on the skatepark.” - Harry Brigden.

It was incredible seeing all the different communities come together, we had skaters riding with scooters, scooters getting cheered on by punks and punks riding with skaters, ise has such a close community of wonderful people and it was lovely to get to share that with so many new faces.  Streetwise was only there till about 6-7 so we missed the last few hours but we had enough time to chuck out a few prizes and sort some kids some new griptape and hoodies.

“one of the hardest experiences of my life and now all my hard-core homies wanna come back next year” - Jamie Weir

To round up the blog we spoke to organiser blxckmystic on how he felt the event went in the end “we organise aggro fest with love & passion for both music & action sports culture, it means the world to us to be able to keep our friends memory alive, raise money in support of local charities & bring everyone together & celebrate our community, we have held aggro fest for two years in a row now & it keeps growing & getting bigger, it will be exciting to see how we can continue to grow & expand the event to reach more people & fundraise even more to help the local community!”