Summer Sundae Weekender Preview - August 11 to 13

The Summer Sundae Weekender is the best little festival you?ve probably never heard of. Now in its sixth year and ever growing in scale, the festival stretches over four stages with more than 100 artists. Events take place in and around Leicester?s De Monfort Hall with this year?s headliners including Elbow, Gomez, Calexico, The Proclaimers and Belle & Sebastian.
This will be my third year at the festival. So what makes the Summer Sundae so special, I hear you ask? Firstly, It?s a great place to see all manner of up-and-coming bands with Keane, Kasabian and Hot Chip among others having played there in recent years. Secondly, the festival site is very close knit, with all the stages are in close proximity to each other, making it a doddle to wander from one to the other.
It is also situated right in the centre of Leicester so, while you could spend the whole weekend in blissful ignorance of the outside world, the city centre is only a 10-minute walk away. Finally, the festival is fairly cheap as festivals go, with a price tag of �75 with camping only costing �2 per tent, but early bird tickets are available for only �65. The campsites are clean and friendly places, with facilities that don?t go to rack and ruin, even by the last day.
The music starts on Friday afternoon, August 11 and runs through to Sunday night. Tickets are still on sale as I write, but the camping tickets have already sold out. The festival is supported by BBC 6 Radio so if you can?t make it, you can still tune in and hear all the highlights. For further information, have a look at the following sites:
Summer Sundae official website: www.summersundae.com
BBC6 website: www.bbc.co.uk/6music/events/summersundae2006/
Efestivals website: www.efestivals.co.uk/festivals/summersundae/2006/

Author: Garath Hacking
Manchester iJourno group