As the city gears up for its annual spring festival season, brighton.co.uk will be your one-stop online resource for hotels & accommodation, eating-out, shopping, what’s on listings and much more.

You can read our first Brighton Festival preview in The Brighton Magazine, where bassist Peter Hook talks about Joy Division's legacy; ahead of the Heritage Orchestra's unique take on the band's back catalogue.

The Great Escape Festival, Europe's leading festival for new music, takes the city by storm over this May's middle weekend. Thirty local venues will host three hundred bands, and local cyber cafes & wifi hotspots will be alive with young punters tweeting and filling chat forums with updates from all their favourite bands.

Brighton even had a link to the BAFTAs, when a local teen got to interview some of the world's biggest cinematic stars. City school & colleges are providing plenty of free opportunities for their students to get involved in the arts.

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Finding Brighton Hotels During the Festival

Brighton is a very popular tourist destination throughout the year, so it can be a challenge to find somewhere to stay. And during the Brighton Festival throughout May the city is even more vibrant than normal attracting a broad cross section of visitors.

You might have used generic hotel websites and directories for other cities, where you never seem to find exactly what you are looking for, but Brighton has its own local hotel website Hotels Brighton as part of Brighton.co.uk.

Navigation of Hotels Brighton is very user friendly giving you simple key information about things like budget and size, pictures as well as the essential information about each Brighton hotel's main services.

On Hotels Brighton you can search specifically for things like guesthouses and B&Bs in Brighton, medium hotels in Brighton, boutique hotels in Brighton and self catering in Brighton. And, unlike many other hotel websites, it is kept up to date by people living in and around Brighton and Sussex, who know the area because of many years getting to know the hotel owners. Furthermore, you can actually use the site to book directly with the hotel avoiding unnecessary third party fees.

Let us know what you think.

Brighton Festival Launch

It's that time of year again. I think everybody in Brighton looks forward to May and the annual festival.

This year's Brighton Festival launched on Saturday with a blistering performance by Asian Dub Foundation, at Brighton Dome. And I'm looking forward to another great schedule of events from Brighton Fringe.

You can find a gallery of images from the festival events so far, including Asian Dub Foundation, at: Brighton Festival Images.

Here are a few forthcoming events which might wet your appetite:

• The Muel and The Moulettes performing at Komedia;
• Neil Ansell's (former Panorama journalist) - near death experiences;
• National Comedy Talent Competition in Brighton

If you're a bit "bookish" or enjoy a lively and thought provoking discussion you might like to the Books and Debate programme, which launched with Billy Bragg on Sunday.

And, just a quick reminder: If you're travelling from out of town you can find a broad range of hotels, bed and breakfasts and hostels by visiting the Brighton Hotels section of Brighton.co.uk and you can find Restaurants in Brighton too.

Enjoy the Festival!

And, remember if you have anything to share about the Brighton Festival post your comments at the bottom of this Blog.