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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Entertainment
Jochan Embley

Radio 1's Big Weekend 2020 goes digital with live streams featuring Sam Smith, Biffy Clyro and more

Radio 1’s Big Weekend is going digital this year, as the festival hosts a series of live streams featuring Sam Smith, Biffy Clyro and more than 100 other acts.

The three-day event was set to take place in Dundee’s Camperdown Park later this month, but will instead step into the virtual realm across the bank holiday weekend of May 22-24.

The online event will be made up for 50 live sets, recorded by artists in their own homes and featuring the likes of Anne-Marie, Rita Ora and Young T and Bugsey.

A number of live sets from previous editions of Big Weekend — including Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus, Dave and J Hus — will also be broadcast as part of the festival.

Elsewhere, there will be at-home gigs performed by emerging artists, as well as DJ sets from a number of big-name selectors.

Radio 1 Breakfast host Greg James said: “It’ll be a great opportunity to relive some of our favourite performances from over the years and although it’ll be a technical nightmare, having some new performances from artists’ houses will be great for everyone to have something fun to watch and listen to over the Bank Holiday Weekend.

“And if it all goes wrong, we can just blame the pandemic and say that at least we tried,” he added.

The full line-up will be revealed “in the coming weeks”, organisers said.

The festival will be broadcast across the weekend on Radio 1, with full sets available on BBC Sounds.

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