Leicester at the Music Festivals

Our coverage of the Surface Unsigned festival has moved to a new page

Festivals in Leicester/shire | Out of Town festivals

Local Festivals

The Big Session festival, 19th June to 21st June 2009

The DeMontfort Hall, its gardens and Victoria Park was the venue for this festival of folk, jazz, blues and alternative genres. Now in its fifth year, the Big Session has established itself as a must see annual event for music lovers both locally and nationally. The festival's three stages gave the audience a mixed feast of musical talent, ranging from Billy Bragg and Jersey Budd through to emerging local acts. This year's line up sparkled with top rank acts, including Oysterband, Levellers and Edward II. Local artists who took to the main stage included Jersey Budd and Chris Conway and also lesser known bands such as Norcsalordie, who are equally as enjoyable.

Similar to the bigger Summer Sundae weekender, the Big Session offered a lineup of artists from folk, country, Celtic, traditional and similar styles of music, mixing well established acts with new acts and local singers.

A family oriented event, people of all ages were visible in the crowd. A wide variety of food stalls, a huge selection of real ales and ciders, made this a relaxing, holiday-esq event, albeit a triffle expensive for those os uf feeling the crunch.

more soon;

Spark Children's Arts Festival

The 2009 festival ran from 25th May - 7th June, presenting a broad mix of theatre, dance, storytelling, puppetry, music and visual arts events from national and international artists and companies. The programme was created for children aged 0 to 13 and wass presented in theatres, schools, libraries, village halls and parks all over Leicester and Leicestershire.

Spark Childrens Festival

Summer Sundae 2008

Held at the De Montfort Hall and Gardens near Victoria Park, Summer Sundae wass the place to be for big named acts and a lineup of local bands. 2008 was a great year, as we reported at the time. The main stage was opened by Leicester band The Heroes on the first day of the festival and on the second by Hinckley band The Chairmen.

14th - 16th August 2009 SUMMER SUNDAE WEEKENDER at the De Montfort Hall, Leicester.

This year you can see THE STREETS, The Noisettes, The Zutons, The Charlatans and loads more - check the Summer Sundae web site for the latet linups.

Original Bands Showcase (OBS)

The OBS 2009 now has dates for all heats and the final; these are summarised on our OBS news page

Glastonbudget 2009

The Glastonbudget Festival took to the fields of Wymeswold near Loughborough again over the May band holiday 2009. Several stages offered a top class line up of Tribute bands and New Acts and acoustic artists, playing their own original music. Hailed as the best yet, the good weather and turnout of music fans was another feather in the cap of this growingly important festival.

Fristok Festival

4th July - The Fristok Festival takes place in the area of Frisby, Hoby and Rotherby, with a large, open space surrounded by glorious Leicestershire countryside on what will hopefully be a balmy summer’s evening, add a stage, a PA, a bar, a barbecue and a gang of like-minded people to the mix and you should end up with a splendid night’s entertainment - and opportunities for local bands to raise their profiles before an audience of several hundred music lovers.

See our page on the Glastonbudget festival

Check out the Fristok Festival web site

Diwali

The lights were turned on in Belgrave's Golden Mile last night (12th October) with lots of dancers, music and fireworks - the 2009 festival will be in October/November time.

Diwali information

September

The Leicester International Music festival takes place 18 -21 September 2008. One of the finest chamber music festivals in Europe.

CARIBBEAN CARNIVAL

Leicester's Multi-Ethnic community takes to the Streets again for a colourful and vibrant celebration of Caribbean culture, with a parade around the city centre and London Road and a big gathering on Victoria Park with several live music stages.

Victoria Park festival - all day. Music stages, food stalls, beer tents, market stalls, shows.

Watch out for more news about Carnival 2009.

Plus local bands playing - see the gigs list for details

The Supersonic Festival

May to October - One Rythm Dance Festival

16th and 17th August Supersonic Festival Countesthorpe.

Out of town festivals

Our page listing all known festivals of any kind in Leicester and Leicestershire or nearby.

Download 12 - 14th June 2009

FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER PERFORMANCES FROM THIS YEAR’S EVENT CAN BE WATCHED ‘ON DEMAND’ AT DOWNLOADFESTIVAL.CO.UK

FAITH NO MORE, LIMP BIZKIT, KORN, PENDULUM, DEF LEPPARD, SLIPKNOT AND MORE AVAILABLE
FOR 3 MONTHS

For the very first time, the Download Festival is giving fans the opportunity to relive performances from the 2009 event, ‘On Demand’ for the next three months (from 25th June.) Featuring 15 artists, including all three headliners, a massive 38 full songs will be available.

As the most successful event in the history of the Download Festival, both onsite and online, with over 2.3 million live streams served on the official website in three days, the event organisers are thrilled to be offering more than ever before. Live Nation are, for the very first time, able to show performances from the event for a limited period starting at 9:00am on Friday 26 June.

Featuring the debut festival performance in more than 11 years for Faith No More, the return of Limp Bizkit, plus rousing performances from Def Leppard, Slipknot, Korn and Pendulum, all these and more can be relived via the award-winning official Download Festival website.

The Download Festival 2009, saw a capacity 80,000 audience watch the bands live onsite and 304,000 unique viewers tune in to the live webcast. Now Download festival will reach its widest audience yet as the brand new ‘On Demand’ service goes live next week.

“This has become a truly remarkable year for the Download Festival, we rolled out our most successful live stream of the event and we are now able to provide our first ever On Demand service. We worked closely with the bands and management to achieve this and look forward to developing this relationship further.’ Mark Yovich, EVP & GM International Digital, Live Nation.