Free music festival returns to Clarence Park this weekend

Organisers of the weekend festival in Clarence Park have been quietly working behind the scenes since the start of the year in the hope that a licence would be granted.

And after the application was recently approved, it is hoped that a bumper crowd will turn out this Saturday and Sunday.

Kate Honeyman, from organisers Wakefield Music Collective, said: "We've just been given the nod, but have been working hard behind the scenes for about six months, hoping we could do it.

"We've had to jump through some pretty big hoops, but we are just over the moon.

"It's been really stressful waiting, not sure if it would go ahead or not.

"We are all volunteers and we've all been working really hard without knowing if it would happen.

"It's been hard enough with the isolation and social distancing just to get things organised, trying to raise the money and ordering everything."

Named Clarence Aftershock Festival, in reference to the pandemic lockdown, it will run from 12 noon until 9pm on both Saturday and Sunday, August 14 and 15.

There will be 11 bands each day across two stages, with sets in between by Wakefield DJ Collective.

This year's festival is being dedicated Collective member Garry Marshall who died in January last year, who had been a dedicated organiser for many years.

He instigated the first meetings with Wakefield Council to save the park's bandstand and was a member of local band Little Britain, who will be playing this weekend.

The headliners are London-based electro dance band, Pink Diamond Revue on Saturday night.

On Sunday, the top act will be Gunlaw, a heavy rock Yorkshire band, popular on festival scene and a bikers favourite.

It is free for anyone to attend and there will be food stalls and a beer tent. For further details, click here.Kate Honeyman said: "A lot of the bands have not played for 16 months and I think everybody is just ready to go.

"It's now just a case of getting people to come. I don't think people know that it's on.

"We want people to come, but to be sensible."

Started in 1991, it is Yorkshire's longest running free music festival, and was only cancelled last year to the pandemic.