First festival in Northern Ireland since pandemic takes place
Music lovers have have been rejoicing as the first music festival to be held in Northern Ireland since the Covid-19 pandemic began takes place in Limavady.
The two-day festival on Friday and Saturday follows a test event by the organisers in June.
Restrictions were lifted from 5 July that means live music performances are allowed again, with no volume restriction in outdoor venues. Currently music indoors must be performed at an "ambient" level.
There is a reduced number of festival-goers, down from a 10,000-strong crowd in previous years, to around two and half thousand at July’s event, celebrating its 10th anniversary with performances from And So I Watch You From Afar, Lyra, Kila, Ciaran Lavery and over 60 musicians, comedians and family performers in total.
A further event at Ballymully Cottage Farm in August has a planned capacity of 5,000 people.
Speaking to UTV on Friday, festival director Ross Parkhill was delighted with how it was going.
“I’m ecstatic, it’s been a long time coming. We’re nearly two years since our last event and festival. It’s been a pretty long battle for outdoor music. The weather has come along with everybody else,” he said.
“Everybody has been very keen to do it and put it on, all the musicians are dying to play. So it’s been hard from the point of getting it allowed, but it getting it over the ground and getting it going, has been - I wouldn’t say easy- but everybody has been more than game for it.
“We’re expecting two and a half thousand people, we’re just over two thousand at the minute, the weather’s good so I would be pretty confident that we’ll meet our target and use this as a springboard for August to get to 5,000 people.”