With only 4 months until Parklife Weekend makes its exciting return to Vale Park during the late August Bank Holiday, those long sunny days will be with us before you know it. Aylesbury Town Council, along with its partners, will be bringing you a weekend filled with a huge array of music and family entertainment – creating a mini-free-festival right here in the centre of Aylesbury for you to enjoy with family and friends. The heart of this event is to increase and nurture a community spirit whilst supporting local artists, bands, businesses, charities and organisations.
Parklife weekend will start at 12noon on Saturday 26th August with Live in the Park. Headlining this fabulous free music extravaganza are The Bon Jovi Experience, they are the only tribute act in the world to have played live with Jon Bon Jovi and are credited as “The best Bon Jovi tribute act” by Jon Bon Jovi himself. Their performance is not to be missed, with the looks, style, charisma and sound of the real thing, they will provide an explosive set filled with all-time classics to rock you into the evening.
2017 sees the introduction of the Sportif Citroen Second Stage, positioned alongside the main stage, enabling more performance time to a wide variety of local and original artists at this huge open air concert. On this stage you can expect to see Lucy Mair, Ed Cusick, Lauren James Ray, A Little Bit Country, Billy Watman and Callow Saints. Many of these talented artists bring their live music to Aylesbury on a regular basis, and it will be exciting to see them perform on such a grand scale. Callow Saints will be on stage just before the headline act at approx. 8pm. You may have heard of Billy Watman, he is an award winning 15 year old flamenco finger-style guitarist, his interpretation of Bohemian Rhapsody was a viral sensation and in 2016 he reached the final of Sky Arts TV show “Guitar Star”, he’ll be performing at approx. 6:30pm.
The main stage will play host to a broad range of styles and genres, it will be opened at 12noon by NBS who will energise you with classic pop and rock covers, getting you up and moving ready for an entire day of great music. They will be swiftly followed by Eton Rivals with a unique blend of punk, mod and ska; Gravity Blue and Michael Lee provide their own piece of rock and pop. Then comes a little sprinkling of Rockabilly from The Nightshades all topped off with some Big Band Swing.
In addition to the music there will be traditional fun fair rides, a huge 85ft inflatable assault course and a bouncy castle to entertain the kids (of all ages) for free, all day. In the Community Involvement Area there are businesses, charities and organisations providing even more free activities, games, fun and entertainment, including face-painting from Zoomania, safe sun-gazing with UKAstronomy, music lessons from XYZMusic and skills with Affinity Babington, with lots more still to be confirmed.
Chair of the Communities Committee Cllr Allison Harrison says, “Those of you who have attended the past two years at Live in the Park have expressed your enjoyment and praised its growth and commitment to the local community. We take pride in providing you with an event that is enjoyed by so many people, showcasing local music, businesses and charities in a relaxed, safe and friendly environment. The entire Parklife weekend is the highlight to our programme of events across the year, it’s a joy to work with so many other organisations to bring this mini-festival to Aylesbury.”
Later it’s Stars in the Park; where you can join the amateur experts from UKAstronomy to find out more about the stars, planets and solar system. On the Sunday Aylesbury Church Network host an open air church service, Church in the Park, followed by Footie and Music in the Park. The entire weekend culminates with Proms in the Park, where you are invited to bring picnics, rugs, flags and your singing voices for this great British tradition, with a 45 piece concert band, soloists and a guest interval performance by The Queens Park Centre Jazz Band. A spectacular firework display will finish the entire weekend at around 9:30pm on Sunday 27th August.
Further information and details will be confirmed closer to the event.
With thanks to Sportif Citroen for supporting this event and to all of the other companies involved in helping to provide this event to you free of charge.
