News

Friends Of Mine Festival Launched

• 13th Dec 2010

Endings can sometimes be beginnings too. When the organisers of celebrated Manchester bands showcase Friends Of Mine hosted a stage at the city’s final ever D:Percussion festival in 2007, it planted the germ of an idea to do their own festival on a bigger scale – a proper, bands-in-a-field, camping-over, fun-packed, three-day extravaganza.

Four years later, it’s set to be a reality. May 2011 sees the launch of Friends Of Mine Festival – FOMfest – in the picturesque grounds of Capesthorne Hall in Siddington, Cheshire, just 15 miles south of Manchester and easily accessed by motorway and public transport from around the UK.

“Manchester is the nation's music capital but it doesn’t have a festival to call its own,” says founder Sam Gardner. “We’re setting out to put that right.”

Already confirmed to thrill the 10,000 strong crowd are local legends The Charlatans, A Certain Ratio, and Cherry Ghost, plus The Phantom band, Black Lips, and Jim Noir, and believe us when we say there’s a host of huge names to be confirmed across four stages in the coming weeks.

With the original Friends Of Mine club night, the ethos was to always be inclusive and friendly. It’s a principle that’s been carried over to the festival too: FOMfest will be a family-friendly festival, priced at a super-reasonable £89.50 including camping, and with something on the bill to suit all tastes.

Aside from the musical entertainment on the main stage, the Big Top stage and the acoustic stage, there’ll be a dedicated tent for stand-up comedy, spoken word and poetry, and a marquee run by events company House Party, who specialise in turning spaces into riotous themed shindigs. There’s also a cinema tent showing Manchester-centric movies Control and 24 Hour Party People plus a host of cult classics and a special screening of Mr Nice introduced by Howard Marks himself. Food and drink on the site will be locally sourced and high quality – none of your gristle-burgers here.

Friends Of Mine rose to prominence in the boom of DIY club nights in the early 2000s, inspired by the likes of Akoustik Anarkhy and Blowout.
“Putting a night of your own on suddenly became something you could do if you had enough like-minded mates and enough enthusiasm,” says Gardner.

The first Friends Of Mine took place in October 2004 in a bar in Fallowfield, South Manchester. “Little did we know then that by 2008 we'd have a monthly Liverpool and a fortnightly London FOM running alongside, and that we would not to go more than four weeks without a Manchester show until April 2010 when festival planning took over,” says Gardner. “The ethos for the Festival has come from the same idea as the original club night: maybe we can do one of our own…”

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