BIG name acts have been announced as headliners for Brighton’s newest music festival.

The 5,000-capacity Together The People Festival, which is taking over Preston Park on Saturday, September 5, and Sunday, September 6, will feature Welsh psychedelic indie-rockers Super Furry Animals, Brighton folk-punk legends Levellers, and Public Service Broadcasting as headliners.

Also on the bill are Mercury Music Prize-nominated Ghostpoet, singer-songwriter Lucy Rose, critically acclaimed hip-hop outfit Dizraeli And The Small Gods, X Factor finalist Lucy Spraggan and Brighton’s own supergroup Brakes, who are marking the tenth anniversary of their debut album Give Blood next month.

Organiser James McKeown, from promoters One Inch Badge, said the aim of the festival was to fill a gap in the market.

“New music has been catered for with The Great Escape and the modern dance market is covered with Shakedown and Wild Life,” he said.

“There’s definitely a gap for something more towards folk, indie, rock and pop.”

Speaking yesterday he said interest in the new festival had been encouraging since it was first announced in The Argus earlier this month. “We have had 3,000 people sign up to our website,” he said. “It’s really amazing considering we hadn’t announced any artists”

Today also sees the first pre-sale tickets released at 9am, exclusively through award-winning independent record shop Resident, in Kensington Gardens, and the website of seafront venue Concorde 2.

The reduced price weekend tickets will cost £70 for adults aged over 16, and £37.50 for 11 to 16 year-olds. Under 11s have free entry. The festival, which will have a 10pm curfew, has no onsite camping.

“Both Concorde 2 and Resident are partners in the event,” Mr McKeown said.

“We wanted to give them the exclusive sales”

A second wave of artists and events will be announced at the end of June.

Tickets for Together The People are available in person from Resident, or by calling 01273 606312, or online from www.concorde2.co.uk. For more details visit www.togetherthepeople.co.uk.

Background

First hitting the charts at the height of the Britpop boom in 1996, Super Furry Animals have remained firm favourites of the indie scene.

Their eclectic career has seen them explore the worlds of techno and indie-rock, as well as release the biggest-selling Welsh-language album of all-time, Mwng, in 2000.

Since their breakthrough album Levelling The Land in 1991 Brighton’s Levellers have been one of the country’s most popular live acts, even launching their own Devon festival Beautiful Days in 2003.

Their Brighton studio Metway in Canning Street has supported local artists including Electric Soft Parade and Clearlake, as well as established names such as Orbital and Nick Cave. 

Public Service Broadcasting grew out of the release of the British Film Institute’s extensive audio-visual archives. Songwriter J Willgoose Esq was inspired to write music around vocal samples from wartime propaganda films, drivers’ education movies, and most recently verbatim recordings from the height of the Space Race.