LIVE in Barnsley Music Festival,

About the event

The LIVE in Barnsley Free Music Festival started with two local guys, Dave Pearsall and Steve Clifford, having a pint in their local back in December 2012 and discussing the merits of Sheffield’s Tramlines Festival and how there ought to be a similar festival in Barnsley.  Six months later and in 2013 Barnsley’s first metropolitan music festival took place in the town centre with 11 venue and 99 bands taking part.  An estimated 2,000+ turned up to watch nine hours of musical entertainment.

In 2014 the festival expanded to 13 venues and 117 bands.  The summer sunshine brought over 3,000 people out and the venues reported record takings. 

In 2015 the festival expanded again to 14 venues and 126 bands.  Well over 4,000 people enjoyed the event including over 500 musicians taking part.

The owners and managers of all the venues involved have always been really supportive, and so have local PA companies, printers and instrument suppliers.  We source as much as we can from Barnsley firms and we have worked with everyone from the town museum & college to the local chippy. 

The festival has received national recognition at the UK Festival Awards in London and Barnsley is now firmly on the national music festival map.   In 2013 we were shortlisted in the Best New Festival category.  In 2015 we were shortlisted in the Best Festival for Emerging Talent category.

We also support local charities and in 2014 and 2015 we raised well over £3,000 for local charities.  In 2016 we are very pleased to announce that our chosen charity will be Hallam FM’s Cash for Kids charity and the target this year is to double that total.

As a free festival, the whole event is reliant on sponsorship, advertising and music loving folk giving their time and talent for free.  We receive no public funding from the local authority or any government agency.  We have a lot of local people to thank for all the support they have given us, without them, this would never have got off the ground.  The full festival sponsors for 2014 and 2015 were local roofing specialists, Fenton and Fenton Roofing.  This has now ended and we thank Fenton’s for their support.

If you would like to support the festival in any way we would be very grateful.  If you wish to receive our sponsorship brochure for 2016, please don’t hesitate to contact us at liveinbarnsley@gmail.com

THANK YOU

Why should you sponsor?

David Pearsall

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