COOL AS LEICESTER

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Diary Dates

Soundhouse Summer Sessions – Saturday 25 June
The Soundhouse

The Summer Sessions are BACK. Enjoy live music outdoors on the city centre’s best outdoor stage. From 1-6pm every Saturday through the summer. Enjoy a mixed bill of local acts with some drinks in the sunshine. Free entry and all ages welcome.

Adam Ant – Monday 27 June
De Montfort Hall

Performing his classic chart-topping singles and personal favourites, Adam Ant’s Antics audiences will be thrilled with the return of live music and can see him live in Leicester on Monday 27 June.

Bity Booker – Sunday 3 July
The Musician

With her unique songwriting style Bity Booker weaves elements of folk, pop and psychedelic whimsy to create brilliant self-penned songs.

This weekend sees a brand new festival land in the city as Beyond Festival comes to Abbey Park. Organised by a local team, the festival aims to bring something new and fresh to the city centre. We caught up with event organiser, Jack Meldrum, to find out more about it.

How would you describe Beyond Festival in 5 words?

A breathtaking festival for Leicester.

Tell us about some of the highlights of the line-up?

There’s a lot. The biggest names for the city would be Wilkinson, especially as he’s had a big chart-topping song, Afterglow. We’ve got Skream who is an absolute legend in house music and other genres. We’ve also got Bru-C from Nottingham who’s currently in the charts and has done so many amazing songs recently. Then we’ve also got some incredible local talent. Pax are from Leicester and have recently blown up and are now touring worldwide, we’ve got up and coming duo Murphy’s Law who have taken off recently on BBC Introducing. We’ve got some great up and coming acts locally and it’s really important to us that we represent those acts from within the city.

How did the concept for Beyond come about?

There are 5 of us involved and we came up with the idea of a city centre event during the pandemic.  We’re avid festivalgoers ourselves and have worked in the events industry for some time, so we really just wanted to put something on that we would want to go to. Hopefully the customers love it just as much as we do.

Why Abbey Park?

It’s in the city centre, and its accessible for everybody with no awkward stairs or travel involved. The festival is about the centre of the community and bringing people together in the heart of Leicester.

Will Beyond Festival go on to be an annual event?

We certainly hope so. The intention is definitely run the festival every year in Abbey Park.

What can people expect from the site and the event as a whole?

We have 3 stages with varied line-ups, but as well as that we have a great street food area, with wood-fired pizza, tasty vegan options and more, a range of drinks available from the festivals bars. As well as that we’ve got a vintage market running with Gully Garms, next to him we’ve also got a funfair running, so there’s something for everybody! Of course on Friday night we’re also running Ibiza Proms in the Park, which is perfect for a more chilled out affair.

What are you personally most looking forward to?

There have been rumours that a very big RnB artist is going to be turning up as a surprise guest… that might be the highlight of the day! We’ll have to wait and see… if not, for me, it’s probably got to be towards the end of the night when the sun’s setting, watching thousands of people dancing in the heart of our city. That’ll be a moment I’ll remember forever.

Where can people buy tickets?

Tickets for both Ibiza Proms in the Park and Beyond Festival are on sale via Skiddle.

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WEEKLY PLAYLIST

In this week’s playlist you can get up to speed with the acts performing at this week’s Beyond Festival in Abbey Park.

Have a listen and get in touch to tell us which tracks you’re loving.