Sunrise Celebration rescheduled to join Big Chill festival in August

The cancelled Sunrise Celebration festival which was due to be happening in Somerset last weekend but was hit by adverse weather conditions, has announced that it will now go ahead later this year.

The festival has put a message on its website (here)that the festival will still happen, now over the weekend of Friday 1st until Sunday 3rd August, in a new location Eastnor Castle Deer Park, Eastnor, Herefordshire and ticket holders will get free access to The Big Chill festival held over the same weekend in a field next door.

Festival goers get a chance to see the full line-up of acts on offer at Big Chill, but the original music schedule of Sunrise Celebration will not be there, however Sunrise are hoping they can deliver a new line-up for Sunrise at the Big Chill.

Big Chill festival goers will also be able to enjoy visiting the Sunrise Celebration as well with both sets of festival goers effectively getting two festivals for the price of one.

The message says:

Our heartfelt apologies go out to all who have been let down by this catastrophe.

We are feeling a bit shell shocked, a mixture of disbelief at the misfortune of Sunrise this year and sadness that what was set to be such a successful event has just become a muddy quagmire in the flash floods that hit Somerset. But behold a miracle has manifest!

We are excited to announce Sunrise WILL happen this year.

We now have a new date, a new location… and to compensate all our ticket holders for their lost weekend, we're also giving you full FREE access to another world class festival!

Whether you came, got a wristband and then had to leave, Whether you queued on the A303 for hours only to be turned back… or whether you were just about to leave home when the news came through…

We're sorry, we love you, and we’re going to make it up to you… big time.

The new dates are August 1 – 3, the new location is Hereford… and the festival in the field next door will be… The Big Chill.

All that you love about Sunrise will be there. We won't be able to follow our original entertainment schedule but the new line up now includes Bomb The Bass, Asian Dub Foundation, Roots Manuva, Nitin Sawhney, DJ Krush, Mr Scruff, Annie Nightingale, Fat Freddy’s drop, DJ Vadim, Thievery Corporation. Martha Wainwright, TrentMolle and Plaid.

Plus The Mighty Boosh, Bill Bailey and Beth Orton. And er, did we mention Leonard Cohen?

For the full list of what's on at The Big Chill go to their website. For the full list of what's on at Sunrise, give us a few days. We're still cleaning up a very muddy field.

For more details on what's been going on and what's likely to happen next, keep coming back to this site over the next few days. We'll also tell you, as soon as we can, exactly how you get to exchange your Sunrise ticket for a Sunrise at the Big Chill ticket.

Katrina Larkin co-founder of The Big Chill said of the new partnership,

"We know that Sunrise Celebration can bring something really special to The Big Chill. We admire their green ethos and spirit and we're so pleased they took us up on the offer. We really felt for them when we heard the news at the weekend but we are so pleased to be able to help out and are absolutely delighted to be welcoming them into the Big Chill as part of our happy family."

The Big Chill festival will also be on the site which has four lakes, thick woods and an arboretum at Eastnor Castle in Herefordshire. For the line-up details as available please click here.

The Big Chill Festival already includes multi-media, music, entertainment, literature, arts and comedy with partnerships for 2008 already including The ICA, Roundhouse, BFI Southbank and Underbelly, and now it's added the chance to experience the Sunrise Celebration festival too. To see the eFestivals' listing click here.

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