Punch Records has taken 50 emerging creatives from Birmingham and the West Midlands onto a professional festival site, with its Community Routes 2026 cohort completing paid roles and showcases at Shambala Festival.
The group spent 27 to 30 August at Kelmarsh Hall and Gardens in Northamptonshire, working in front of more than 15,000 people. Selected participants were given performance and showcase slots, while the wider cohort put residency skills into practice at one of the UK’s leading independent festivals. Crucially, every Community Routes participant involved at Shambala was paid.
The paid festival run was the headline addition when Punch opened 2026 applications, offering 50 fully funded places for 18 to 25-year-olds. More than 300 young people applied, beating last year’s 250 applications and underlining demand for routes that sit outside university and conventional industry pipelines.
Before Northamptonshire, the cohort completed an intensive summer residency in Birmingham. DJs, vocal performers, radio broadcasters, photographers and digital artists spent a bootcamp style week on practical development, collaboration and industry access, rather than working as five separate camps.
They heard from Donae’o, Girls Don’t Sync and Namywa, and visited BBC Asian Network for a look at careers inside a national broadcaster. New working relationships formed across the group, including two DJs joining forces with a vocal performance participant to make a new track.
That Brum-to-festival pipeline has extra weight given Shambala’s own Birmingham beginnings, through student-led events and a city record shop that became a creative hub. The 2026 edition returned in late August after a sold-out 25th anniversary, giving the cohort a national platform while Punch argues it is possible to build networks and sustainable careers from the West Midlands.
Bradley Morrison, Head of Marketing and Communications at Punch Records, said: “Without a doubt, this is the most talented year of talent from any programme I have witnessed from around the region. Seeing this cohort perform in front of thousands, build their confidence, and make new friends along the way cements the importance of this programme, especially in an industry that has seen a decline in youth-arts based initiatives.”
He added: “There’s a moment during Community Routes when you see people stop thinking of themselves as someone who wants to work in the creative industries and start seeing themselves as somebody who belongs there. That’s what this programme is really about.
“We can teach skills and bring some brilliant people into the room, but what happens when 50 young creatives start talking, collaborating and pushing one another is incredibly powerful. This year we had DJs collaborating with vocalists and completely new creative relationships forming in front of us.
“They’ve been able to learn from people such as Donae’o, Girls Don’t Sync and Namywa, see behind the scenes at BBC Asian Network and then take that experience onto a professional festival site at Shambala. They aren’t simply being told what a creative career could look like. They are starting to live it.”
Shambala is not the end of the 2026 programme. Participants now move into Community Routes Masterclasses covering the professional and commercial skills needed to turn ability into a career. Selected creatives will also be able to pitch for Community Routes Commissions, with financial and developmental support to take original ideas off the drawing board, building on the commissioning model introduced after the 2025 residency.
“And importantly, Community Routes doesn’t finish when the residency ends,” Morrison said. “The next stage is about continuing that development through masterclasses and giving some of these creatives the chance to secure a commission and a budget to make an idea of their own happen. We want Community Routes to open the first door, then help them work out how to keep opening doors for themselves.”
Punch Records was established in 1997 in Perry Barr by Ammo Talwar MBE. Community Routes is its fully funded talent programme for emerging 18 to 25-year-olds from Birmingham and the West Midlands, across DJ, Vocal Performance, Radio Broadcasting, Photography and Digital Arts pathways, and is supported by The National Lottery Community Fund.
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