Forwards, a new festival from live entertainment company AEG Presents and Bristol-based Team Love, a festival and events production company, is set to welcome over 60,000 people in September.
The event is set to be the largest festival to ever take place in Bristol, and will happen on the Downs, the green space in the Clifton area of the city.
It will be headlined by artists such as The Chemical Brothers and Jamie XX, and will feature other performers like Little Simz, Fred Again, Sleaford Mods and Róisín Murphy.
Tickets for the Forwards festival, which will take place on September 3-4, will go on sale on Friday.
The festival will feature two main music stages, as well as ‘The Information’ which will be a space for activism, examination and debate, highlighting current affairs and cultural issues, as well as challenging the role of music festivals.
Organiser Team Love has described the event as a new type of ‘inner-city festival’ and is also working with its associated partner Big Team CIC to offer underrepresented young people work experience, either through shadowing or paid job placements across the festival. This will be supported through collaborations with local youth organisations such as ACE and Babbasa.
Wider partnerships with Bristol Pride and other event teams across the city of Bristol will enable Team Love to create opportunities, even after the festival has finished. Team Canteen CIC, an independent hospitality collective that fights against food vulnerability, will host a pop-up cafe at Forwards and will cater for talent and crew backstage.
Sustainability is also important to Team Love and the events it runs, and will use Forwards’ first year to focus on the event’s impact, collect data and then create a three-year strategy on how to reduce emissions and develop a circular festival.
Team Love’s Tom Paine told the BBC: “We’re proud to be unveiling a new festival for a new era of festivals, in the best city in the world, our hometown of Bristol.
“It’s important that our events invite debate, and challenge the audience to do more to make the world a better place, as well as being a place to come together, dance and make memories.”
Image: Aranxa Esteve on Unsplash