Review: CityLove Festival

With CityLove hailed as the biggest dance music event to ever hit Preston, the Skiddle team headed down to see if things lived up to the hype...

Aiming to unite the cream of Preston's local DJ talent in a one day, 12 hour dance spectacular, expectations for CityLove were pretty huge. A definite feeling that we’ve been crying out for something on larger scale than the usual club nights resulted in a massive buzz amongst local music fans.

The outdoor setting surrounding 53 Degrees, the UCLAN student union, turned out to be pretty perfect. A fenced off area encompassing the indoor Source Bar, a large outdoor space with plenty of seating and steps provided a more than suitable dancefloor. A total of four stage areas were spread throughout the arena, including a super-loud main stage high up on the central steps, the Beats/Drop area hidden away around an almost secret alleyway (and rightfully so, it was DIRRTY), and the FNR guys greeting party-goers with their trademark house. The whole set up worked very well in allowing people to mill around as the mood took them, the only downside would be when sat in the main seating area, slap bang in the middle of the goings-on, your ears were a little bombarded with two if not three different basslines at any one time. Given the relatively small area permitted to position things though, I think we got the best result.

Despite a few blips in the weather, overall we did ok and the outside partying went down a treat. As predicted the atmosphere really picked up as the night crept in, I mean who doesn’t love a bit of outdoor raving?!

Having heard big things about the up and coming local DJ/production duo of Butler & Murt we headed into 53 degrees to see if they could live up to the hype. With proceedings still going on outside the club was pretty empty, this however didn’t seem to effect the boys in any way with an highly energetic performance both musically and physically. Butler & Murt take it in turns to mix a few tracks together, playing often tribal and melodic tech. As things wind down outside the room starts to fill up - people moving straight to the dance floor as they come in having realised what they’ve been missing out on.

As 53 degrees filled up things quickly turned to a club night rather than a festival. The upstairs room being the main way in form the festival it was absolutely packed, no point even trying to get a drink at that bar. A quick trip downstairs to the main room (which was surprisingly quiet) to restock on drinks and back into the upstairs room for another hit of pounding tech-house.

For a first time inner city festival, the CityLove guys have done an exceptional job and everyone we spoke to at the event felt the same way. It’s about time someone did something like this for the kids of Preston. Roll on CityLove 2012!

Words: Chris White

Tickets are no longer available for this event