ORGANISERS of a military history weekend hope visitor numbers are not dented by a new music festival held on the same weekend.

Shoreham Fort’s Military History Weekend returns for a sixth year on June 6 and 7 – coinciding with the first ever Wild Life music festival at Shoreham Airport.

The fort event promises an “explosive mix” of cannon firings, historic re-enactments, children’s hands-on-history activities and live music.

Gary Baines, Friends of Shoreham Fort chairman, called on the community to “get behind” his event as Shoreham prepared to welcome an influx of 35,000 visitors for Wild Life.

He said: “I wouldn’t say we’re averse to the music festival idea, but the dates they’ve chosen could have been more sympathetic to community groups that have already booked their own events.

“There will be 35,000 people a day coming to Shoreham, so traffic will be gridlocked. So we’re basically calling on as many people as possible to come down to our free weekend to ensure we break even.

“It’s too late to reorganise as we only found out about Wild Life on the day of the council meeting.

“We’re very reliant on the good will of the community – and other voluntary groups – so let’s all pull together as much as possible please and really support each other.”

Wildlife, put together by the organisers of V-Festival, is the brainchild of dance music heavyweights Disclosure and Rudimental. Sellout crowds are expected to flock to the airport to watch the likes hip hop legends Wu-Tang Clan, Radio 1 DJ Annie Mac and techno mastermind Seth Troxler.

But while Mr Baines agreed with the notion that Wild Life’s clientele would be considerably different to the Fort’s Military History Weekend, he stressed his group needed to have “robust plans in place” to ensure the event would be held next year.

He added: “We need at least 2,000 visitors over the weekend so we can break even and ideally set aside funds to help with the initial start-up costs of next year’s event, as we did last year.

“As a result, we’re asking local groups to consider offering financial support – either towards general event costs or to fund specific activities such as cannon firings.

“All financial donations will be acknowledged via printed publicity material – on the Friends of Shoreham Fort’s Website and FB page, in press releases and in Beach News.”

Visit shorehamfort.co.uk

BACKGROUND 

Organisers behind Wild Life recently confirmed 35,000 tickets had been snapped up within a week of going on sale.

The event looks to be one of the biggest for music lovers in the south east this year and will welcome a host of artists including Sam Smith, Wu-Tang Clan, Nas, Seth Troxler, Mark Ronson, Annie Mac, Julio Bashmore, Adam Beyer, Andy C, George Ezra and more.

Rob Ballantine, director of festival organisers SJM Concerts, told The Argus: “We’re thrilled to have sold out all the tickets, which hadn’t been on sale for even a week. It’s unbelievable.”