Category: UK

UK Independent Festival Awards

We mentioned shiny awards earlier in the week with the UK Festival Award nominations.  The Independent Festival Awards were awarded this week.  These awards, promoted through the Association of Independent Festivals (AIF), recognise excellence in the independent festival sector.

The winners were as follows;

Category Winner
Smart Marketing Campaign Truck Festival
Caterer of the Year The Peckish Peacock
Live Act of the Year Henge
Unique Festival Arena The Data Mine at Shambala
New Festival on the Block Black Deer Festival
Act of Independence Southbank Centre’s Meltdown Festival
Outstanding Contribution Sarah Nulty (Tramlines)

Congrats to all the winners and to the AIF for running the event.

 

Glastonbury day tickets on sale this Sunday

I was so close to making the headline, ‘Glastonbury tickets back on sale’ but it’s Friday and I’m not that much of a dick.

Day tickets for the Sunday at Glastonbury go on sale this Sunday.   The tickets are aimed at locals in the region of the festival.   You need to be registered and you must be willing to travel the final leg of the journey to the festival from one of nine drop off points in Somerset:

  • Castle Cary
  • Cheddar
  • Frome
  • Radstock
  • Glastonbury
  • Midsomer Norton
  • Shepton Mallet
  • Street
  • Wells

Tickets for Glastonbury sold out in about half an hour, but that doesn’t tell the full story of difficulty in actually getting one of the tickets within that window.  There are a significant amount of hereditory diseases that you have better odds of being born with than you have of getting a Glastonbury ticket.  Still, that’s what makes the effort all the more fun.

 

Shortlists announced for UK Festival Awards

Who doesn’t like a nice big shiny trophy.  Festival organisers love the shinys and so they get together to have a big awards ceremony, the UK Festival Awards.

The Awards recognise excellence in the industry and are an important benchmark of quality, encouraging better performance by the festival promoters.

The shortlist for this years awards were announced in recent days.  Here is a selection of the shortlisted events.

2018 Nominees 
Best Festival Production All Points East
Eastern Electrics
Elrow Town London
Isle of Wight Festival
Latitude Festival
Parklife
Best Metropolitan Festival* Barclaycard presents BST Hyde Park
Jika Jika! Festival
Macmillan Fest
Parklife
Victorious Festival
Wireless Festival
Best New Festival* All Points East
Arcadia London
Jika Jika! Festival
Magical Festival
Neighbourhood Weekender
Timber Festival
Best Festival for Emerging Talent Black Deer Festival
Dot to Dot Festival
Festival No.6
FOCUS Wales
Live at Leeds
Liverpool Sound City
Best Grassroots Festival* Barn on the Farm
Breaking Bands Festival
Liverpool Calling
Osfest Derbyshire
Woo Fest
Zombie Fest
Best Overseas Festival* Annie Mac Presents: Lost & Found
Hideout Festival
Pol’and’Rock Festival
Snowbombing
Sziget Festival
Tomorrowland
Best Family Festival Bearded Theory
Deer Shed Festival
Just So Festival
Latitude Festival
The National Festival of Making
Victorious Festival
Best Non Music Festival Camper Jam
Camp Wildfire
Cheltenham Science Festival
HowTheLightGetsIn
The National Festival of Making
Taste of London
Best Small Festival* ArcTanGent
Electric Fields
Neighbourhood Festival
When In Manchester
Woo Fest
Zombie Fest
Best Medium Sized Festival* 2000trees
Beat-Herder
Bluedot Festival
Cambridge Folk Festival
Kendal Calling
Rewind Festival
Best Large Festival* Boardmasters Festival
Download Festival
Isle of Wight Festival
Latitude Festival
Parklife
TRNSMT Festival
Line up of the Year All Points East
ArcTanGent
End of the Road Festival
Isle of Wight Festival
Latitude Festival
Parklife
* Shortlist Decided by public vote and panel of experts

Nominees in the other categories can be found here.

The awards will be presented on December 6th at what presumably will be a horrendously drunken affair at The Troxy in London.

Ramblin’ Man announces Blues & Prog headliners

The Ramblin’ Man Fair is known for covering all bases.  Their line up of stages includes Blues, Classic Rock, Prog Rock.  Having already announced Foreigner as their Classic Rock top dogs, they have begun filling the other key slots.

Beth Hart will headline the Blues Stage.  Anathema will headline the Prog stage, proving that modern prog rockers can reach the top too.  Anathema will be joined by Polish rockers Riverside and Sweden’s Pain of Salvation.

Tickets are on sale here.

All Points East for Chemical Brothers

A ten-day festival, the liver could not cope.  All Points East rams two weekends together and sandwiches a load of community based funin between .  This years event will be held from May 24th to June 2nd in Victoria Park in London.

Organisers have announced The Chemical Brothers as the headline act on May 24th.  Joining them on this opening day will be Hot Chip, Primal Scream, Little Dragon, Spiritualized, Danny Brown, Little Simz and Ibibio Sound Machine.  That is a fairly tasty line up for one day.

All Points East is a music festival held over two weekends once a year in London’s Victoria Park, run by AEG Presents. The 10 day event comprises two weekends of headline music and four days of free entry and community activities known as In the Neighbourhood.  A nice combination.  Capacity is around 40,000.

Last years headliners included Bjork, LCD Soundsystem, The XX, Catfish and the Bottlemen, Nick Cave and The National.

Tickets are on sale on Friday, November 9.  Visit the website here for further information.  Day tickets last year were £60.

 

2018 After Show Video

Foreigner to headline Ramblin’ Man Fair

Foreigner are the first act to be announced for the classic rock fest, Ramblin’ Man Fair.  Ramblin’ Man will take place from Friday 19th – 21st June, 2019.  The event takes place in Mote Park, Maidstone in Kent.

Now in it’s fifth year, Ramblin’ Man Fair will normally attract an older crowd, unsurprising given its line up.  Expect a crowd of about 15,000 to rock up to the event.

Foreigner, who have been on the go since 1975, have shifted over 80m records in that time.  While the Foreigner name has over 40 years of history, only Mick Jones remains from the original line up.

With 9 studio albums, Foreigner have plenty of numbers to choose from.  Big hits like, ‘I wanna know what love is’ and ‘Waiting for a girl like you’ should get the lighters / camera torches in the air.

Tickets are on sale here.

 

Fresh blood – more additions for Bloodstock

Bloodstock, the UK’s biggest independent Metal festival has announced further additions to their line up.

Code Orange, Skeletonwitch, Rotting Christ and Eluvitte have been added to a bill which is led by Sabaton, Cradle of Filth and Scorpions.   Other acts already announced include Children of Bodom, Queensryche and Dee Snider.   By the time the lights go on, over 100 acts will be confirmed for this gorge of metal.

Bloodstock began life as an indoor event in 2001.  After five years, Bloodstock Open Air moved into the outdoors, where it has been since.  Over the years some of metal’s greatest acts, both old and new have performed, including  Motorhead, Rob Zombie, Anthrax,  Slayer, Alice Cooper, Saxon, Mastodon, Gojira, Behemoth,  Trivium, Rob Zombie, Machine Head Twisted Sister and Lamb of God,

Bloodstock should attract a crowd of about 15,000 to Catton Park, Derbyshire on 8th-11th August 2019.  Tickets, which start from £132 are available here.

If you see my little Red Rooster…

If you fancy a move away from the mainstream, maybe you should look for the Red Rooster.  Red Rooster festival has announced Nick Lowe as their first headliner for 2019.  Red Rooster is an Americana and Blue Grass festival which takes place from May 30th to June 1st.  The venue is the spectacular grounds of Euston Hall in Suffolk.

Also included in the first line up announcement for Red Rooster are Low Cut Connie, Dale Watson and His Lone Stars, Jesse Dayton, Errol Linton, William the Conqueror and Joli Blon Cajun Band

Red Rooster has consecutively sold out the last 3 years, and 2019 will no doubt follow suit.  Over the last five years it has grown from an opening audience of about 800 to a crowd of 5,000. It is one of the best value festivals out there at just £69.50 + Booking fee for the whole weekend, which includes 3 nights of camping and parking FREE.

Tickets are on sale here

Falling event numbers and crowds see lossses continue at Live Nation Gaiety

Accounts were recently published for 2017 by Live Nation Gaiety, one of the UK’s largest promoters.  Live Nation operates a large number of the UKs festivals, including Reading & Leeds, TRNSMT, Rize and Isle of Wight.

LN Gaiety, a joint venture between Live Nation and Denis Desmond has reported a consolidated loss after tax of £227,496.  The consolidated loss in 2016 was £2.9m.  Turnover at the company was down to £199.4m, down marginally on the year before.  However, things are far from gloomy at the behemoth, as the company was sitting on over £27m cash in the bank.  Net assets at the company were down 1.5 per cent to £40.1m.

The promoters ran 4,191 events in 2017, this was down from 4,728 events in 2016.  Despite a 11.4% drop in events, the total attendance for events was only marginally down, from 5.48m to 5.34m.

The Company had 630 staff in 2017, up from 618 in 2016.  Salaries in the year amounted to £18.1m, up from £17.5m the previous year.  A total of £527,850 of dividends were paid to “non-controlling interests” during the year, which was down from £3.2 million the year before.

 

 

 

Download 2019 – The metal starts here!

Download, one of the most established heavy metal festivals in the World has released first details of the 2019 festival. Slipknot, Tool and Def Leppard are the headliners at this year’s event.

The sub headliners include Slash, Die Antwoord, Whitesnake, Rob Zombie and Trivium.  Also included are Amon Amarth, Carcass, Delain, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, Opeth, Powertrip, Reel Big Fish, Skindred, Starset, Tesla, The Amity Affliction and Underoath.   Many more will be announced in the months ahead.

A crowd of over 110,000 make this one of the real monster festivals in Europe.  It has inherited the mantle of the lengendary Monsters of Rock Festival which ran at Donnington in the 80s and 90s.  Virtually every heavy metal icon has played at Donnington over the years.  2018 headliners included Guns and Roses, Avenged Sevenfold and Ozzy Osbourne.

Early bird tickets have sold out already.  Tickets go back on sale this Thursday 25th.

Download will take place in Donnington Park from June 14 to 16, 2019.