Rob da Bank has announced a new, two-day music festival to be held in Southampton next spring. Common People will host as many as 30,000 fans for a “really good cross-section” of rock, indie, pop and dance performers on 23 and 24 May 2015.
“We have been inundated with offers to start new festivals every year,” the Bestival founder told the Bournemouth Daily Echo. “It wasn’t until we found the beautiful site of the Common that we felt it was right to start a new chapter in Bestival’s history … The Common’s not just any park on the outskirts of the city, it’s a real part of the heritage.”
Despite Da Bank’s fondness for the new festival’s site, Common People “isn’t a camping show”. Staged from noon to 11pm on Saturday and Sunday, “it’s not a tents, wellies and car packed to the rafters experience,” he said. “It’s a metropolitan two-day show easy to access and open to all ages, compact but packed with experiences and priced very, very reasonably.”
Southampton Common has hosted numerous music events in the past and the multi-act Let’s Rock festival is already scheduled to take place there on 11 July 2015. Da Bank said the new scheme is a “real merger” of his two other annual events: Bestival, which takes place on the Isle of Wight, and Camp Bestival, in Dorset. The former Radio 1 DJ also recently discussed plans to expand Bestival into Europe and North America.
Common People have yet to announce any of their inaugural performers. Interested punters can register for ticket pre-orders at the festival’s official website.
