An ambitious new community-focused music festival has been announced for this summer with a line-up that promises to be 'maybe the best ever in the Furness area'.
The Lock In, a Barrow-based music, arts and cultural organisation, has announced the line-up and plans for the first Coast Roads Festival, taking place at Aldingham Fields over the weekend of July 9/10 - and the stellar line-up is headed by legendary indie band The Coral.
Mal Lingard, from The Lock In, explained how the organisers and the concept for the festival, which will take place over a 36-40,000 square-metre site for around 5,000 people, came about.
"Our mission statement is that we want this to be a festival unlike any other in Britain - by the community and for the community," he said. "We've had some experience of working on large-scale events and we're really proud of what we've done.
"We've got some big-name headliners, which has grabbed everyone's attention - that's fantastic, and that was our aim, to make that splash, but underpinning all of that is local talent, and that as a our business model will never change.
"We see no reward with getting bands that were famous 20 years ago coming back for a last few pay-packets.
"The Coral have been around for a long time now but they've just released an album this year and everybody absolutely loves them - they're still music-makers.
"We'll have a main stage, a dance tent, a northern soul stage, and a family area, where families can just decompress, got the kids ready, and we'll put kids' entertainment on there too.
"Barra Culture are also involved - by chance they have an artists' exchange going on, 10 classically-trained musicians from India, so they'll be playing on the main stage."
Mal said that they wanted to involve every strata of the community, and have already been in contact with local schools, business and charities:
"Education has taken a hit lately, and while the core subjects have been funded, things like music and art have fallen away, so to get the kids involved would be great.
"We did a couple of talks at the Forum, so we invited businesses and local organisations.
"I think everyone had a strong will to be involved.
"We want them all to be a presence on-site, like MIND and other charities, who can trade, make money and interact with a wider audience."
To buy tickets, The Lock In website
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