With five arenas, stalls selling everything from clothing to novelties and more than 40 performers, the green space around Sussex University will be given over to the first Unifest today.

“We’ve catered for events like the summer ball before,” says the University Of Sussex Union’s marketing and events manager Tori Foukes. “But we found the success of those was quite limited and the timing was always crucial as our students have a lot of deadlines at this time of the year.

“We decided as we were getting more festivals around the UK it would be nice to offer our students their own festival on their doorstep.”

For acts the organisers have cast their net across Brighton and beyond, with the Live ’N’ Kickin’ stage offering a largely Brightonian line-up, to be headlined by Transformer and Gloria Cycles, while the Oh Yeah!! and Massacre arenas offer national acts such as Red Light Company, Rosie And The Goldbug, Hot Club De Paris and DJ sets from Kissy Sell Out, Mystery Jets and Mike Fielding of The Mighty Boosh.

The Uni-Versal Links and Urban Dub stages are being devoted to more specialised genres like drum and bass and reggae.

“We wanted to cater for a variety of music tastes and make sure there was something there for everybody,” says Foukes. “We really want to create a festival atmosphere with all the stalls and we’re really happy the weather reports are looking good.”

Don’t think this is just an event for students, though. With a 4,000 capacity the festival is open to everybody.

“When we originally looked at the event we wanted it to be primarily for students, but we didn’t want to make it exclusively for them,” says Foukes.

“A lot of our students live and work in Brighton city centre so we wanted to reach out to them.”

The Falmer campus may be a little way out of the city but, with regular trains from Brighton Station and buses from both the Big Lemon company and Brighton And Hove buses, getting on and off the site should be simple.

And the 10.30pm finish time doesn’t mean an end to the party either.

“There are a few after-parties in the city centre,”

says Foukes. “We are aware we are in a residential area which is why we are finishing early and the parties will then go on into Brighton.”

This Unifest could be the first of many, with the organisers keen on gathering responses from gig-goers to find out what they want to see in 2010.

“Hopefully with the success of this year we can develop it,” says Foukes. “We will be looking for feedback from both students and all people who attend the event to see what direction we can go for next year.”

  • 1pm to 10.30pm, £15 plus booking fee, 01273 709709