The team behind famous Blackpool punk festival Rebellion Festival has announced a four day long outdoor event featuring some of the biggest and most influential new wave acts in history, including Gary Numan, The Stranglers and Peter Hook & The Light. The event is titled “R-Fest” and will be running from the 4th to the 7th of August.
The event will occur at the exact same time as Rebellion Fest, taking place in the Tower Headland, whilst the latter will take place in Winter Gardens, as normal. The Headland has a capacity of around 15,000 people, and has previously played host to Livewire Festival and Blackpool Festival.
According to The Blackpool Gazette, R-Fest was born of the idea to make Rebellion Festival more accessible with the addition of some more mainstream groups. Jennie Russell Smith, the organiser of the festival, is quoted as saying: “We are all incredibly excited for our first ever R-FEST line up; four days of bands in the incredible headland arena with the tower and the Winter Gardens on one side and the Irish Sea on the other. It’s going to be amazing!”
Blackpool Council member Coun Lynne Williams also weighed in on the exciting new addition to the Rebellion Festival event, saying: “The festival organisers have had the ambition to grow the event for some time, but have been obviously prevented from doing so because of restrictions on large-scale events over the past two years… it is great news that this popular event enjoyed by so many people is going to return in a new expanded format next summer. It is an event that along with others held in our town that really brings Blackpool alive and is a firm favourite festival in music lovers’ calendars.”
Rebellion Festival is currently the biggest punk festival in the world and features a myriad of punk and hardcore groups from the UK and beyond. Among the line-up this year includes English punk legends Sham 69, Scottish band The Exploited, as well as Texas punk rockers M.D.C. and New York City hardcore frontrunners Cro Mags.
More information about the event can be found here, on Rebellion Festival’s website. It has been stated that for anyone purchasing tickets only for R-Fest, the event is a standalone, however anyone who has purchased tickets for Rebellion Festival will be admitted to R-Fest free of charge. You can find tickets for R-Fest here, and for Rebellion Festival here.
Ticket prices are as follows:
R-Fest Day Ticket- £55.00
Rebellion Festival Day Ticket- £95.00
Rebellion Festival Weekend Ticket- £195.00
