Beautful Days to open on Thursday this year

The gates to this summer's Beautiful Days will be opening on Thursday to weekend campers for the first time this year.

Those with weekend camping tickets will be able to enter the site between 2pm and 9pm on Thursday 18th August to set up camp. The gates will then re-open for entry at 9am on Friday morning. Stages will not start until Friday afternoon but caterers, traders and bars will be open on Thursday.

Beautiful Days takes place from Friday 19th to Sunday 21st August 2011 at Escot Park, near Fairmile, Devon and will feature music across five stages, and street theatre, as well as site art and sculpture, lots of children's activities a huge children's area in the centre of the festival, theatre, comedy, family camping, camping facilities, licensed bars from local company Otter Brewery, world food, craft stalls, fancy dress, a 'village shop' on site, and more. There is plenty of family camping close to the car parks.

By opening the gates on Thursday organisers will be able to let Dazers enter the site on Thursday or Friday and set up camp at a more leisurely pace, rather than the usual rush to get there early on the Friday morning as in previous years!

This year's Sunday fancy dress theme has also been announced and it will be 'Spots & Polka Dots', with bands and festival goers all wearing something spotty or dotty, plus there will be site art and other things which will tie in with the theme. There will also be a fancy dress competition on Dirty Davey's Bandstand again this year to find the person with the most dotty outfit.

For the first time this year there will be a Silent Disco at the festival (no more singalongs in the campsite?) in The Little Big Top going on into the small hours on the Saturday and Sunday night.

The original Big Audio Dynamite headline the Friday night sharing the bill with Gogol Bordello. Headlining the Saturday night are Carter USM (only UK festival appearance), and, as is tradition, the festival founders Levellers will headline the festival on the Sunday night followed by a the usual fireworks spectacular to end the weekend.

Other acts confirmed include Pop Will Eat Itself, Flogging Molly, Stereo MC's, I Am Kloot, John Grant, The Blockheads, The Mob, Alabama 3 (acoustic & unplugged), Teddy Thompson, Gentleman's Dub Club, Four Men & A Dog, Paul Heaton, The Beat, The Jim Jones Revue, Divokej Bill, Lau, Salsa Celtica, The Wolf People, Sheelanagig, Rory McLeod, Dave McPherson (INME), MojoFury, and The Fabulous Good Time Party Boys. The first acts to be announced for The Little Big Top are DJ Friction, Sigma, Jaguar Skills, Trolley Snatcha, and System 7.

Beautiful Days have announced that they have invited the Oysterband to take over The Big Top stage on Saturday 20th August for a classic all-day Big Session line-up headlined by them with Eddi Reader, Roddy Woomble, The Bad Shepherds, Dizraeli and the Small Gods, Jackie Oates, and The Young Coppers.

Also still to be announced is the final acts for The Big Top and Main Stage on Wednesday 1st June plus the comedy line-up in The Little Big Top, more acts for the evening in there and some of whats going to be on at Dirty Davey's Bandstand. For the line-up details as available, please click here.

An adult weekend camping ticket is priced £110, child (10 to under 16 years of age) weekend camping tickets are £60, children aged 5 to under 10's weekend camping tickets are £30 and under 5's weekend camping tickets are £5. Campervan passes are £35 and car routing/parking passes are £15. There will be no day tickets available.

Please make sure you purchase tickets for the age your child will be when they attend the festival, not their age at the time you buy.

To buy tickets, click here.

Campervan tickets have nearly sold out, organisers have expanded the size of the campervan field once again this year but numbers are still limited.

Latest Updates