The UK festival line-up is already bursting at the seams with world-renowned events, but the creators of such popular staples as Download are set to add another to the annual calendar. As you may know, the grounds of Scone Palace used to host T in the Park, but no longer. Music bosses hope to fill the gap with a brand-new event.
If anyone can bring a fresh fest back to Scone Palace, it’s the team over at Festival Republic. Lest we forget, they were responsible for Reading, Lollapalooza Berlin, Wireless, Latitude, and Glastonbury between 2002 and 2012. They’ve just applied for a public entertainment licence from Perth and Kinross Council. And if permission is granted? That means around 20,000 music fans could come back to Scone Palace for two stages of live music, bars, and funfair rides.
Organisers should be offering overnight camping, plus plenty of transportation options, and the festival is slated for May 25 and 26 2018. The application is currently only for a one-off licence, but who knows what the future could bring if this is a success?
Melvin Benn is still at the helm of Festival Republic, which makes us think the as yet unnamed festival will go through. It was Benn, after all, who worked so diligently as a trouble-shooter on the final T in the Park on Strathallan Castle Estate in 2016.
As for what to expect from ‘Scone Festival’, we’re still largely and lamentably left in the dark. All we know is that Geoff Ellis, himself a key T in the Park organiser, has stated that any replacement event would be “very different” from what was staged at Balado in Kinross-shire and then at Strathallan Castle.
Ellis remarked that he is far from “jumping up and down” to host a camping festival in 2018, so we suspect the Scone Festival will cater to a more mature crowd. In that case, it might well live up to its working title.
While T in the Park is not returning, TRNSMT Festival, which is currently organised and held by DF Concerts in Glasgow Green over the weekend that used to be reserved for T in the Park, will be staged in the same location for 2018. There’s one change, and it’s likely to quicken the pulse of any festival lover – the 2018 event will take place over two weekends instead of one.