Mercury Prize winners headline new festival

Ezra Collective - pictured here performing at the 2023 Mercury Prize awards - were Friday's headliners

A new festival is a "curated journey" of music and experiences, its organiser said.

The two-day Wild Fields Festival at Earlham Park, in Norwich, began on Friday and the opening night's headliners were Ezra Collective, the 2023 Mercury Prize winners.

The festival, which continues on Saturday with acts including producer and musician SBTRKT, is an extension of the Wild Path multi-venue event, which began in Norwich in 2019.

Organiser Ben Street said seeing people's enjoyment would make all the hard work worth it.

'Special experience'

Mr Street said the festival was a natural progression from the city-based event.

Other acts include Kae Tempest and Zambian singer and rapper Sampa The Great.

The festival has with partnered with Climate Live UK and has welcomed their big pink, solar-powered bus stage onto the site.

Mr Street said: "It's all about building that community that we began to build with Wild Path... it's bringing that into a field basically and inviting as many people as possible.

"I listen to a lot of music. I go down a lot of [streaming platform] rabbit holes, get fully immersed, and I want to bring that to a live platform and do something big for a party," he said.

"All the months of hard work and heartache and things going wrong... it all makes sense in that field or venue and you see everyone's faces and [the] enjoyment of acts on stage, then it's quite a special experience."

He said running a festival on this scale in a field was a learning experience and he had researched other events to learn the best ways to manage everything from security to sustainability.

Creating an "eclectic mix of artists" was also a priority, he said.

"We've really curated a journey throughout the day," Mr Street added.

Wild Fields also features poetry performances, debates and wellness sessions.