A classy Neighbourhood

Neighbourhood Weekender burst on the scene last year with a bang., with The Courteneers and Noel Gallagher leading the way. The northern festival are looking to go event larger this year, with Richard Ashcroft and George Ezra taking the headlining duties. Neighbourhood Weekender will run on Saturday 25th and Sunday 26th of May in Victoria Park, Warrington.

Last years festival sold out on day one, in under four hours in fact. Pretty impressive for a maiden event. The success was recognised with a nomination for Best New Festival at the UK Festival Awards.

Tickets for this year will go on general sale Friday 16th November at 9.30am via the festival website and ticketmaster. Tickets start at £105. A nice touch is the exclusive presale for Warrington residents (WA1-5 postcode) go on sale Thursday 15th November at 9.30am via http://po.st/NBHDWKNDpre.

Also announced for the three stages over the two days are;

Saturday 25th May 2019
GEORGE EZRA
PRIMAL SCREAM
YOU ME AT SIX
NOTHING BUT THIEVES
TOM GRENNAN
THE HUNNA
MAXIMO PARK
EMBRACE
PALE WAVES
GAZ COOMBES
THE BLINDERS
YONAKA
SEA GIRLS
ANTEROS
BARNS COURTNEY
MARSICANS
KAWALA
MAISIE PETERS
FUZZY SUN
ZUZU
SONS OF RAPHAEL
SHADOWLARK

Sunday 26th May 2019
RICHARD ASHCROFT
THE VACCINES
SLAVES
THE CHARLATANS
GERRY CINNAMON
THE AMAZONS
THE SLOW READER CLUB
KATE NASH
MYSTERY JETS
SAM FENDER
PICTURE THIS
JADE BIRD
CLEAN CUT KID
BAD SOUNDS
WHENYOUNG
NO HOT ASHES
SKINNY LIVING
OUR GIRL
ONLY THE POETS
AVERAGE JOE
DBOY

Dimitri Vegas and Like Mike to close Exit

Dimitri Vegas and Like Mike have been confirmed as the act to close the Main Stage on the final night of Exit Festival, on July 7th 2019. Hailed as the number one DJ pairing in the world, this should be a cracking way to finish the festival.

The multi-award winning festival, once described by The Guardian as ‘the best festival in the world’, was attended by almost 200,000 people in 2018. The Cure and Sofi Tukker are already confirmed for the event.

Exit, held in the city of Novi Sad, Serbia, was born out of the movement for freedom and democracy in the Balkans. It has grown steadily over the years and annually boasts a strong line up. Last years menu included; David Guetta, Grace Jones, Fever Ray, Jax Jones, LP, Ofenbach, Nina Kraviz, Richie Hawtin, Asian Dub Foundation and Daniel Avery.

Exit is crazy cheap. You can get a festival ticket for just 99 EUR +b/f. Daily tickets for the first day of the festival when The Cure are performing (4 July) are available at 29 EUR +b/f for general entrance, 39 EUR +b/f for the fan pit and 100 EUR +b/f for GOLD VIP.

Tickets from here

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.

Vampire Weekend, The Cure and The 1975 to take a bite out of Madrid

Vampire Weekend, The Cure and The 1975 are the latest bands to be announced for Mad Cool Festival. Following hot on the heels of The National, Mad Cool are building a strong line up. The Madrid festival runs from 11 – 13 July.

New York band, Vampire Weekend have been around for twelve years. That is very depressing. In that time they have released just three albums, the most succesful of which was arguably their eponymous debut album. There are now conflicting reports as to whether their fourth album will be released early in 2019.

After an extended hiatus, and the departure of one of the band, Vampire Weekend began touring in 2018, playing a number of high profile festivals, including Fuji Rocks, End of the Road and Lollapalooza.

The Cure have a busy summer ahead, with appearances at major festivals throughout Europe. Already announced are Exit, Rock Werchter, Nova Rocks, Hurricane & Southside Fesitvals, NOS Alive, Roskilde and more.

The 1975 were announced earlier in the week for Benicassim. The Chocolate rockers look set to have a major year in 2019, cementing their status as a headline act.

Well over 100,000 people will attend the festival in Madrid. Mad is a relative baby in terms of Europe’s festivals, but it continues to attract a great line up.

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.

Lana del Rey to party in Benicassim like it’s 1975

Lana Del Rey is the first headliner announced for Benacassim 2019. She will be joined in Spain by The 1975, La M.O.D.A ., Blossoms, Cupido and Carina. The festival, now in it’s 24th year, will run from 18 – 21 July.

Benicassim, is the festival for people who like to be very very hot. Festival Internacional de Benicassim is an endurance sport, where organisers challenge you to party for pretty much a week and still live to tell the tale. The party at Benicassim goes on all night.

The campsite opens on the Tuesday and music begins on the Thursday and runs for four days. The festival itself is split over three main stages as well as other installations.

The town of Benicassim is located near to Valencia and is easily accessible. Get a flight to Valencia and a bus or train will take you to Valencia.

An early bird 4 day pass is currently €110. Given the quality of line up that FIB normally has, that is some of the best value available from any of the major festivals. Just look at last years line up.

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

Fleetwood Mac to play PinkPop

Fleetwood Mac are going Dutch this Summer. The veteran rockers will play PINKPOP, at Landgraaf, in the Netherlands. This is a return to the festival for Fleetwood Mac, they played the 2nd Pinkpop festival in 1971!

Fleetwood Mac are firmly back on the live scene in recent years. They have played events such as Isle of Wight festival and are rumoured to be on this years Glastonbury list. They are also back to old habits in terms of in – band disharmony, having recently fired Lindsey Buckingham.

PINKPOP is the oldest of Europe’s festivals, dating back to 1970. It is somewhat unusual for a modern rock festival, as it is named after a Christian feast – Pentecost is celebrated 7 weeks after Easter Sunday and marks the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles of Christ. Pink is Dutch for Pentecost. This rather strange association means that PINKPOP has a somewhat moveable date and is one of the earlier festivals on the summer schedule.

Recent headliners have included Green Day, Paul McCartney, Pharell Williams, Muse, Rammstien. Last year saw Pearl Jam, Bruno Mars and Foo Fighers top the bill. The festival has a capacity of 60,000.

Tickets for the 1971 gig were about 7 guilder, about 4 euro in today’s money. Tickets for next years show will go on sale in March. Ticketmaster NL are the ticket agent.