VIRGIN MEDIA is pumping up the volume ahead of the V Festival weekend with the release of a dedicated app on its TiVo boxes. Designed to sit alongside the V coverage that Channel 4 will be offering up, the app will give non-V goers the chance to see extra footage such as interviews and backstage action. In advance of the [...]

ORGANISERS OF Oxfordshire’s 10,000-capacity Towersey Festival are reporting that ticket sales are ahead of the same time last year, with a sell-out event on the cards. Acts performing across the event’s nine stages include Billy Bragg, Cara Dillon, The Burns Unit (featuring Mercury Nominee King Creosote) and Berlins 17 Hippies. “In the current climate we had hoped to just about [...]

WOMAD SAW ticket sales rise some 29 per cent this year, attracting 35,000 fans to Charlton Park in Wiltshire, according to organisers. The line-up included Jamaican Jazz Ensemble, Gipsy sensation Gogol Bordello and artists from around six continents. Organiser Chris Smith says the non-corporate event doesn’t aim to sell out, adding the huge capacity of the parks is much more [...]

FOLLOWING ITS record sell-out, End of the Road festival has announced a club tour for September featuring Willy Mason. The American troubadour will be supported by The Staves – three sisters whose harmonies hark back to the sweet sounds of Crosby, Stills and Nash – and ex-Low Anthem frontman Daniel Lefkowitz. The End of the Road tour will take in [...]

GOCARSHARE has launched with a application which maps the user’s location and allows them to pick from a number of people who are offering rides back home who are just a phone call away. goCarShare.com has already linked up with over 50 of the top summer festivals and is working with festivals in innovative ways to help people share journeys. [...]

ORGANISERS OF the Belladrum music festival in the Highlands, enlisted the Red Cross to give shelter to stricken campers after torrential rain engulfed a campsite. The charity said more than 60 people, mainly families with young children, were moved into a makeshift centre in a performance tent on higher ground by 5am. Emergency supplies of blankets and heaters were brought [...]

DESPITE A record attendance and an expanded, re-designed site, Oxfordshire’s Truck festival failed to make a profit this year, are unable to pay the festival’s creditors, and say if they are unable to pay off its losses, the festival will end. The 14-year-old event, which was headlined by Bellowhead, Radiohead’s Philip Selway, Blur guitarist Graham Coxon, pop-dance act St Etienne, [...]

IGNITION FESTIVAL in Newcastle has been cancelled less than 48 hours before gates were due to open after Newcastle Racecourse, where it was due to be held, pulled the plug. Management at the racecourse told the Journal newspaper festival organisers failed to submit an event safety plan, details of security, first aid provision and failed to pay essential suppliers. In [...]

FESTINHO 2011 is the latest music festival to be cancelled this summer, with organisers vowing to return next year. Lack of a sufficient level of sponsorship is cited as the reason for the event being pulled, despite good ticket sales by fans keen to see the likes of My Tiger My Timing, Hot Feet, Skinny Lister, Treetop Flyers and more. [...]

MORE THAN 2,000 air guitar fans turned out at WOMAD on Sunday for a world record attempt. Action on Hearing Loss, formerly the RNID, wanted music fans at the Charlton Park weekend festival to attempt to break the record for the largest number of people playing air guitar at the same time. A record 2,227 turned out and rocked the [...]