New music festival on Plymouth Hoe

Plymouth City Council says the planned festival could attract up to 20,000 people a day

A new four-day music festival on Plymouth Hoe has been announced for 2024.

Plymouth City Council said events firm Live Nation was ready to bring the "best of rock and pop" to the city in the Summer Sessions festival.

The council said it would not "make any financial investment or take any financial risk" to fund the event, which it said could require about £1.2m of investment.

The authority said it hoped to generate some income from the festival from its second year.

Summer Sessions will be a four-day event with organisers hoping to attract up to 20,000 people a day.

It follows the cancellation of the 1 Big Summer music event in Plymouth in 2023, which was scrapped by the promoter due to "rising costs and a lack of early ticket sales".

Tudor Evans, leader of Plymouth City Council, said: “This is a brilliant deal for Plymouth, for music fans and for the tourist industry who will all benefit from people staying in hotels, drinking at bars and eating out."

Acknowledging a "challenging few years" for live music, with escalating costs and risks, he added: "We have been looking for some time at bringing something special to the Hoe and we think this is it."

Live Nation is the company behind the Lytham Festival in Scotland, now running for a decade and attracting "up to 20,000" people a day to see the likes of Jamiroquai, Sting, Lionel Richie and Kim Wilde.

Responsibility for set-up and organisation would lie with Live Nation, according to the deal, with the council assisting and enabling access to the Hoe.

The council said previous efforts to find an independent events promoter with "enough financial backing to make a loss in the early years" had failed.

It said working with Live Nation Entertainment would free the council from any financial risk, while potentially creating a revenue stream from the second year to fund the British Fireworks Championships and Armed Forces Day.