Music festival organisers appeal for memories to help commemorate 20th anniversary

The festival will return in September for the 19th year – but preparations are already under way for 2027’s celebrations.

Next year, the festival will be the biggest in its history and will include various projects to commemorate the milestone.

Festival director Tommy Gardner said: “NMF at 20 will be a video documentary that will look back at the festival with footage spanning two decades.

“It will include exclusive interviews with founding members of the organisation team as well as team members from across the years up to the present day team.

“There will also be interviews with previous performers as well as supporters of the festival and of course, snippets of memories shared from local people who have attended the festival over the years.”

Organisers are urging people to send in their favourite memories of the festival – whether it’s written or a video message along with any footage or photographs they have.

Mr Gardner added it is an enormous achievement and a credit to everyone who has been involved that the festival is approaching its 20th year.

He added: “Whether it’s the founding team, organisation teams across the years, performers, sponsors or the thousands of people that have come out over two decades to support this much loved annual community event - every single person has played a vital part in making the festival what it is today almost two decades later.”

The Northampton Music Festival is a multi-stage one day event, held across the town centre.

Traditionally, the main stage has been in the Market Square with other venues and locations across the town also hosting other stages.

In recent years, the main stage relocated to both Abington Street and Derngate while the Market Place was undergoing renovation.

Each year, some of the biggest acts from the town’s music scene have performed alongside musicians from across the UK.

Looking back at his favourite memories since being involved in the organisation, Mr Gardner said: “My favourite memory has to be back in 2023, this was the first year where we didn’t have the Market Square to house our main stage.

“I was nervous on how our attendees would take to having our main stage located on Abington Street.

“The festival day came – it was a huge success and I remember standing at the side of the stage while headliner Billy Lockett was performing and looked out at crowds of people completely filling Abington street with lights on their phones.

“This was a real ‘pinch me’ moment that I’ll never forget.”

Organisers are still to announce who will be performing at this year’s festival which takes place on Sunday, September 6.

However, they are currently putting together the line-ups for each stage and are expected to reveal who is playing at the start of August.

Last year’s event was headlined by unpeople who this month announced details of their debut album and also played on the main stage at this year’s Download Festival.

Anyone with items they would like included in the NMF at 20 Project can email [email protected]