Red Shoes’ ETEP Quickstep

The U.K.’s Blood Red Shoes have picked up 12 shows from this year’s European Talent Exchange Programme, equaling the record set by fellow Brit bands Editors and Infadels in 2006.

The Brighton-based punk/grunge duo is one of the 12 acts to have collected five or more shows from this year’s ETEP, which looks as if it may break its own record by producing close to 200 festival appearances.

Programme organizer Ruud Berends is still collecting the final figures, but so far 61 European artists from 14 countries are sharing 178 shows.

Steve Zapp from International Talent Booking, who is agent for Blood Red Shoes, Editors and The View – which also got into double figures last year – has most to fear from acts represented by fellow London agents Cris Hearn from Primary Talent and Alex Hardee from CODA Agency, who look after two of the closest rivals.

But Hearn’s Does It Offend You, Yeah? is three shows adrift and Hardee’s Lightspeed Champion is four behind with eight, sharing third position with French folk-rock duo The Do.

A dozen acts are sharing 82 shows, nearly half the total. Yelle, one of the three French bands among them, has seven gigs and the U.K.’s Calvin Harris and The Tings Tings and Sweden’s Lykke Li have six each.

In 2003, the first year the ETEP was staged, 23 acts from eight countries shared 53 gigs. The five that Junior Senior got were enough to see the Danish band come out on top.