One of Hong Kong’s most well-known live music spots, The Wanch, brought back its free annual music festival, the H2 Festival 2024, to showcase 100 local bands over the course of 10 nights. This year’s edition of the festival will also have a new event called the H2 2024 Grass Roots Weekender to give up-and-coming Hong Kong-based acts a platform to show off their skills. The two-day event will see 25 bands take the stage from 4:15pm onwards for a minimum of 20 minutes.
| JULY 13 | JULY 14 |
| Lanaly | Rockmentals Nepal |
| Paper Girl | Giorgio Manzoni |
| Stone Dragons | Brain Burn Band |
| Turbulent | Feel The Noise |
| Off Schedule | Midnight Wander |
| Relic ft Paco | Vortex |
| Jorjor Wel | Bad Actors |
| Day’s End Quartet | Poltergeist |
| HiBye | The Intervals |
| The Pro Nouns | Happy Lamb Band |
| Karmageddon | Scars of Time |
| The Octopus | Bebe’s Wish |
| El Kapitan & The Privates |
The new two-day event features the acts who originally applied to be part of the H2 Festival 2024 line-up, but who could not find a spot there as the organisers say the showcase was “massively oversubscribed”. So they decided to add another weekend to feature bands like alt-grunge rock outfit Karmageddon, rock quintet Scars of Time, alternative/hard rock Filipino group Bebe’s Wish, and emo rock-indie pop duo HiBye. While several acts play original music, there are others that do covers, like Giorgio Manzoni who sings Ed Sheeran tracks, and The Pro Nouns who do under-appreciated rock B-sides.
The H2 Festival 2024 started as a one-night affair in 2010, and is one of the best platforms in the city for local artists to play live gigs. The event will now be in The Wanch’s new location at 90 Jaffe Road, which opened in 2022.
Header image credits: Hong Kong Rocks, Scars of Time
