Popular boutique festival Beacons is heading to Manchester as part of a bold revamp and will be hosting a series of music, art and food events across the city this October.
Organisers are renaming the festival Beacons Metro and swapping the rustic Yorkshire Dales for Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool. (So you can forget your wellies!)
The move was prompted after audience feedback suggested that people were no longer able to afford the spiralling costs of a traditional weekend camping festival.
Beacons Metro spokesman Simon Stevens said: “Despite the feeling that 2014 was the best Beacons Festival so far, the feedback we received from the vast majority of festival goers in 2014 was that the cost of attending a traditional, camping festival was becoming increasingly difficult to meet.
“Our desire to make Beacons more accessible combined with the opportunity to work with some amazing partners at some truly unique spaces, was enough to convince us that the time was right to move onto the next stage of the festival’s evolution.”
Ticketing details and line up information will be released in the coming weeks but organisers have promised a continuation of the festival’s core identity.
Northern quarter record label Melodic and Manchester promoters Now Wave have already been announced as collaborators alongside Last.fm and Resident Advisor magazine.
Last year’s line-up featured Charlie XCX, Coldplay-collaborator Jon Hopkins, British Sea Power and Manchester legends The Fall.
BOOM CLAP: Charlie XCX appeared on last year’s line up alongside Manchester legends, The Fall
Early bird weekend tickets had already gone on sale for the original Yorkshire Dales weekend festival priced at £74.50. Some fans took to Twitter to express their disappointment about the festival’s relocation.
@BRENTELOPE said: “well sad about beacons it was a well nice little festival” while @BradWood96 said: “Beacons festival will always have a place in my heart, and on my arm, RIP beacons”
Organisers apologised for the change but promised that this year’s new project would be better than before.
Spokesman Simon Stevens said: “We’d like to apologise to all those who have already purchased early bird tickets for 2015. We have already contacted all customers and will be arranging full refunds as soon as possible.
“The team would also like to thank everyone who’s attended Beacons Festival in its various guises over the past years, we hope you’re as excited as we are about our plans for 2015.”
For ticket information, click here.
Image courtesy of Beacons Festival, via Youtube, with thanks.
