Echo
Three days of live music, ideas and making on the old harbour wall. Six stages, forty-eight artists, and a town that stays up.
About the festival
Together towards something louder
Echo is a three-day gathering for musicians, producers, makers and the people who turn up for them — built in Jamestown by the people who play there.
About Echo
Artists across six stages
Workshops, talks and clinics
People through the gate last year
Why come to Echo?
Jamestown, Accra
The old harbour wall, three nights, sound carrying over the water to Korle Gonno.
Three reasons
What the weekend is for
Leave with something you can play
Thirty workshops and clinics across the weekend — talking drum, live production, mixing for small rooms, writing in Twi and Ga. Every one of them hands-on, every one capped at twenty people.
Meet the rooms you have been emailing
Label A&Rs, venue bookers, festival programmers and producers from Accra, Lagos, Abidjan and London, in a yard where nobody has to pretend they are too busy to talk.
Play to a crowd that came for this
Twelve thousand people who bought a ticket for three days of music they had mostly never heard. Our open call puts eight of them on a main stage every year.
The programme
Six ways into the weekend
One ticket covers every stage, every exhibition and every workshop with a seat left in it. The late sessions in the fish market take a separate wristband.
Main stage
Three headline nights on the harbour wall, doors at six, last set at eleven. Highlife, afrobeats, alté and one brass band nobody expects.
What's on
The yard
Daytime sound systems in the shade of the old customs shed. Free with any pass, and the only stage where the selectors take requests.
What's on
Drum line
Atumpan, fontomfrom, kpanlogo and borborbor, taught by the players who keep them. Bring your hands; we have the drums.
What's on
Exhibitions
Forty years of Ghanaian record sleeves, sound-system photography from four cities, and a room of instruments you may play.
What's on
Workshops & talks
Thirty sessions on writing, producing, mixing, touring and getting paid. Capped at twenty people so questions actually get answered.
What's on
Late
Midnight to four in the fish market, amapiano through to Ga cultural house. Separate wristband, strictly eighteen and over.
What's on
Who is playing
The lineup, so far
Forty-eight artists across six stages, announced in three waves. Twelve are confirmed; the rest land in September.
Adjoa Sika
Alté
Friday · Main stage
Kwabena Osei
Highlife guitar
Saturday · Main stage
Nii Lantey
Drill
Sunday · Main stage
Ama Serwaa
Afro-soul
Saturday · The yard
Efua Mensimah
Afrobeats
Sunday · Main stage
Yaw Fiifi
Producer set
Friday · Late
Naa Adjeley
Gospel & jazz
Sunday · The yard
Kojo Anaman
Roots & dub
Saturday · The yard
The schedule
Three days, hour by hour
Times firm up in October. Anything marked as capped takes a free place booked on the day, at the workshop room door.
27 Nov
Harbour wall
Gates and the opening drum call
Selorm Agbeko's ensemble walks the length of the harbour wall and opens the weekend the way the town has always been opened.
The yard
The yard: hiplife takeover
Fiifi Dadzie and four selectors trading records under the customs shed while the sun goes down over Korle Gonno.
Main stage
Opening night: Adjoa Sika & Abena Owusu
Two of the sharpest writers in Accra, back to back, with a live band assembled for the weekend.
Fish market
Late: Yaw Fiifi, producer set
The fish market, a separate wristband, and a rig that has no business being that loud. Strictly eighteen and over.
What people say
Ask the people who came
I came to play twenty minutes in the yard and left with a booker from Abidjan in my phone and a producer I still work with. Nobody is grandstanding here — it is a working weekend that happens to have a crowd.
Singer, played 2025
Questions
Everything people ask us
If it is not here, the box office answers within a day — hello@echo.com.
Where exactly is the festival?
The Old Harbour Yard, Jamestown, Accra — the old customs yard and the harbour wall behind it, five minutes' walk from the Jamestown lighthouse. The nearest drop-off is High Street; there is no parking on site and the trotro to Korle Bu passes the top of the road every few minutes.
What does a pass actually include?
Every stage, every exhibition and every workshop that still has a place in it, all three days for a weekend pass and one day for a day pass. The late sessions in the fish market are the only thing that is separate, because the room is licensed differently and holds four hundred people.
Can I bring children?
Yes, and under-twelves come free with an adult — the drum line and the exhibitions are built for them as much as for anyone. The site is family-facing until 20:00; after that the main stage stays open but the yard clears out and the late sessions are strictly eighteen and over.
Can I get a refund or pass my ticket on?
Full refunds up to 30 September, half until 31 October, none after that. You can transfer a pass to somebody else free of charge at any time — email the name to tickets@echo.com and we reissue the QR the same day.
How do I get on the bill?
The open call runs from February to April on this site and it is the only route in — no demos by DM, no exceptions. Eight acts come off it every year and at least two of them go on a main stage. We reply to everyone, including the ones we cannot take.
What happens if it rains?
It runs. Late November is dry season on this coast and the yard is under the old customs roof, so the workshops and the exhibitions are covered whatever happens. If lightning stops a stage we hold, we tell you on the site and on the screens, and we make the time up.
The journal
Notes from the yard
How the festival is put together, what it costs, and the music that made us want to.
The festival
14 July 2026
How the harbour wall became a stage
Two hundred metres of colonial sea defence, a generator borrowed from a fish freezer, and eleven people who thought it would work once.
Read it
Culture
2 July 2026
A short history of the talking drums
Atumpan were how a town was called together, and how it was told what had happened. The tonal language they speak is still taught two streets from the gate.
Read it
Transparency
18 June 2026
What a ₵420 weekend pass actually pays for
Artist fees, the rig, the licences, the medics, the wristbands and the two skips. Line by line, because we would rather you knew.
Read it
27–29 November 2026 · Jamestown
Get tickets.
Weekend passes are ₵420 until the end of September and go up after that. Under-twelves come free with an adult.
