New music festival aims to 'give back to county'

A new music festival has been launched by a tech firm which hopes to make it a regular event.

The one-day, three-stage Halo Festival will be held at Trinity Park, near Ipswich, on 4 July and feature Two Door Cinema Club, The Vaccines and Natasha Bedingfield, as well as local artists.

It has been organised by tech firm and Ipswich Town sponsor Halo, based in Stowmarket, Suffolk.

The company's owner and founder, Paul Hamilton, said the festival would be affordably priced with some discounts for local people and aimed to "give back to the community".

Northern Irish indie band Two Door Cinema Club broke through with their 2010 debut album Tourist History, while The Vaccines achieved chart success with their debut What Did You Expect From The Vaccines?.

Bedingfield rose to international fame with hits including Unwritten, for which she was nominated for a Grammy Award, and These Words.

The event will also feature a DJ tent, alongside another stage supported by Brighten the Corners, showcasing local artists.

Organisers are also offering festival-goers a discount on next year's event in case of wet weather, with ticket prices reduced on a sliding scale according to the amount of rainfall recorded.

Hamilton said: "We are going to start small – a single-day festival for around 10,000 people – and deliver it well. In a few years, we will ramp it up.

"Giving back to the community in Suffolk is so important to us. We are in a great position to be able to do this.

"The majority of our staff are people from Suffolk, and we wouldn't be here without the people of Suffolk, so it is a real privilege to give back."

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