Award nominated festival, Woodseats Live, plans to expand their reach beyond Sheffield, aiming to create a culturally diverse, accessible, and family atmosphere for this year’s upcoming festival.
The local music festival was hosted across nine different venues within the Woodseats area with free entry across all events.
The acts included bands, comedy acts and spoken word from Sheffield creatives, giving local artists exposure.
The organiser, Ciaron Elm, aimed to bring back a community feeling to Sheffield, which is something he believes has faded over the past few years.
He was able to fully prepare for last year’s festival in only 37 days and spoke about his thoughts on the end result: “Everyone was happy, no litter problems at all either. In terms of attendance, every pub was heaving, to the point it was one in one out for most of the day.”
Last year’s festival was a major success, with every venue packed on the day without any police intervention or trouble. But, this year they’re taking a new approach: “We’re changing up which venues are doing what, and we want it to feel themed as well. Last year, it felt like it was potluck to figure out who was performing where, we want the audience to have some sort of an idea first.”
Ciaron plans to invite bands from further out than Sheffield to perform this year, and make the event feel more compact and streamlined.
“We’ve got a few extra sponsors on board due to last year, which has increased our budget. Our goal is practically the same, but we just want it to be bigger and better. Our headline act is a big coup for our festival, as they’ve played at many major music festivals over the years.”
This year’s festival will be on the 23rd of March, at 3pm on Chesterfield Road.
