Next weekend should have seen thousands of families flock to the fields of Topcliffe, a rural North Yorkshire village, for the eleventh annual edition of Deer Shed Festival.
Instead, festivals organisers across the UK were forced to cancel or postpone their events scheduled for summer 2021. The momentum gathered from Deer Shed Festival’s tenth anniversary event in 2019, which attracted record numbers of over 10000 ticket holders, was effectively halted in April.
But the first signs of regeneration are beginning to bloom for the North Yorkshire event.
Original headliners Stereolab, James and Baxter Dury have all agreed to still top the music bill for the re-arranged dates of 30th July – 1st August 2021, on the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday respectively.
Ghostpoet, Cate Le Bon, Tim Burgess, The Twilight Sad, Sinkane, Dream Wife, Boy Azooga, Roddy Woomble, Jesca Hoop, and Snapped Ankles are also among the artists showing their support for the festival by honouring their original slot at Deer Shed Festival 11.
As is tradition in Baldersby Park, the big names will also be joined by an array of the UK’s best emerging artists, such as Bombay Bicycle Club collaborator Liz Lawrence and Leeds-based indie outfit Marsicans, plus post-punk revivalists Dry Cleaning, Do Nothing, and Egyptian Blue. You can view the full music line-up here.
Deer Shed Festival director Oliver Jones said:
It goes without saying the last few months have been the most difficult since we established Deer Shed. Independent festivals across the country, that make vital contributions to British culture and the economy, are still under threat of collapse.
We started to make concrete plans to set up a festival in the wake of the 2008 Great Recession, and many people raised their eyebrows, but I like to think we proved them wrong.
Our determination to emerge from this crisis with even more bold, new ideas is stronger than ever. The rebuild officially begins here, with so many phenomenal artists re-committing to join us in Baldersby Park for the rescheduled dates in 2021.
Among these “bold, new ideas” is a new event from Deer Shed Festival called Base Camp, a “socially distanced camping weekender” aimed at families, which will take place on the original 2020 Deer Shed Festival 11 dates (24 – 27 July 2020).
330 families will be provided with their own clearly marked 15×15 metre camping pitch, complete with their own personal portaloos.
There will be live entertainment, although not in person. The Deer Shed Festival production team have established a radio channel on FM frequency, set to broadcast comedy shows from crowd favourites Justin Moorhouse, Barbara Nice, Tom Binns, Scott Bennett, Helen Duff, Matt Hoss and Katie Pritchard across the weekend.
There will be music, too, in the form of live performances over the radio waves from hotly tipped acts from Yorkshire and the North-East, The Howl & The Hum, Shadowlark, Low Hummer, Mt. Misery, Serious Sam Barrett, Andrew Cushin, Jodie Nicholson, The Laurelles, and resident party-starters Hyde Park Brass Band. DJs Rory Hoy and Across The Tracks will be given the opportunity to soundtrack the rest of the weekend, along with late night and early morning The Ambient Zone sets curated by Digitonal’s Andy Dobson.
You can view full information on Base Camp here.
