The 27th edition of the Eurosonic Noorderslag festival is taking place next week in the Netherlands. The festival offers bands and artists a great opportunity to play in front of festival bookers, agents, promoters, radio people, and various other media type, as well as presenting the artists with new avenues and ideas to explore the European market.

Flying the flag in the Netherlands for Hot Press – who are an official print partner of the Eurosonic festival – is Olaf Tyaransen. Everyday Olaf will be checking in here at HotPress.com to keep us up to date with all happenings at the festival, as well as reviewing some of the live shows, and well basically just telling you what's going down. So be sure to check in from this coming Wednesday until Saturday for all the action.

Each year, Eurosonic Noorderslag highlights one European country with a flourishing musical climate. Finland is the country in the spotlight this year. Previous editions of Eurosonic Noorderslag focused on France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Belgium, Norway, The Netherlands and Ireland. 

Among the Irish contingent heading out to the Netherlands is Adrian Crowley, who's taking the opportunity to play three shows. Adrian will play in the nearby city of Deventer on the Wednesday before heading to the festival for two more shows.

"This will be my first time, I've been hearing about it for years. Everyone seems to think that it's a really great thing to do. I'm really eager just to see potential festival bookers and promoters, and I'm really excited for them to see me play live. I've actually been doing quite a lot around Holland, Belguim and Germany lately. I played at Le guess Who festival in Utrecht right before christmas, so this could really help kind of further that. I've heard great thing about the venue I'll be playing too. It's like a classic looking old theatre and it sounds like it would really suit what I do. I'm also playing with two string players. I love the live interpretation of what I do when I play with them. I'm just really looking forward to the whole thing."

Irish acts such as Villagers, Kodaline, Mmoths, Little Green Cars and Girls Names will also be performing at the festival. Cathal from Girls Names spoke to Hot Press, and told us what their hopes for Eurosonic 2013 are.

"To be honest, when it comes to industry stuff we're probably a little naive. It was our booking agent who told us that we should be playing this. So as far as I know all the festival promoters are there for the summer, so hopefully we can do well out of that. Also our new album is out on February 18, and our European distributor is going to be there as well so we'll be showcasing the new album over there. We've been offered SXSW in the US too, so hopefully there'll be a few festivals during the summer coming off the back of it all."

Dan Hegarty – who'll be broadcasting live from his fifth Eurosonic festival for 2FM – champions Eurosonic as one of the best run festivals he's ever come across.

"It's a great chance to mingle and just sort of have a chat, because you meet all sorts of different people over there from all areas of the music industry."

Dan also pointed out the potential touring opportunities for visiting bands.

"It gives you an idea that there are more areas that you can tour in apart from Ireland, UK and America. You realize that there's the Scandinavian countries, Germany and France in this wonderful place that we call Europe that we're apart of. If you look at bands like God Is An Astronaut who played last year; they've toured an awful lot around Europe since. Delorentos toured a lot last year too. For newer bands it opens your eyes a little bit to what can be done if you put yourself out there. Fight Like Apes also did really well. They played the Vera venue back in 2009. The standard is extremely high. When I first went I just realized that regardless of what genre they might fit in to the standard is really high. So if you're going over you've got to have your stuff together."

2FM will be broadcasting two full shows live from the Vera club in Groningen on Thursday (Jan 10) from 10pm - 1am and on Friday (Jan 11) from 10pm - 12am.

There'll also be a report from the EBA Awards – which precede the festival – from Dave Fanning on Wednesday night at 9.30pm.

But be sure to keep an eye on HotPress.com for our daily reviews, and all the news from the 27th Eurosonic festival.