Preview: 2000 Trees Festival 2014

It’s nearly that time of year again when festival season descends upon us and music fans spend ridiculous amounts of money to grab a glimpse of their favourite acts on a festival stage. Fortunately, if you want to see top quality acts and not have to take out a small loan to fund your ticket, then there is always 2000 Trees Festival at Upcote Farm near Cheltenham. The festival was established in 2007 by a group of friends as an underground alternative to main-stream music festivals, and at £75 for a weekend ticket with camping; it is a snip of the price that you’d pay for major festivals.

As the festival showcases the best of new and underground music each year, it is usually a rather mixed bag of acts, with the artists spanning all sorts of musical genres. This year sees the popular return of Scottish indie rockers Frightened Rabbit, who are headlining. They last played the festival in 2011 and have since gone on to achieve critically-acclaimed success. Joining Frightened Rabbit are a host of other acts, including Band of Skulls, Blood Red Shoes, Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip, Public Service Broadcasting and The Bronx.

To view this year’s the full lineup, see here: www.twothousandtreesfestival.co.uk/artists

2014 also sees a brand new layout for the festival, as the Leaf Lounge and Greenhouse stages are replaced by two brand new larger stages; The Axiom and The Croft. These are named in tribute to two defunct music venues in Cheltenham and Bristol, which founder James Scarlett hopes will help raise awareness of the plight of local independent music venues in conjunction with the nationwide Save Our Venues campaign. James recently said “Many of the UK’s independent music venues are under serious threat which is a really big problem for the industry. We want to highlight this by naming our new stages in tribute to important local venues that have sadly already closed. These are the places where acts like Frank Turner and Frightened Rabbit cut their musical teeth and without them the UK music scene will be further flooded by major label signings and X-Factor winners. We urge music fans to support their local venues and their local festivals too. Either use them or lose them.”

Throughout the years, the organisers have remained true to their roots and limited the capacity of the event to 5000 in order to maintain a small, intimate feel. 2000 Trees is also eco-friendly too; customers are encouraged to share transport and all the delicious food and drinks served there are sourced from the local area. With this atmosphere and great lineups year after year, is no surprise that the festival has won the highly coverted Best Grass Roots award in the UK Festival awards in both 2010 and 2013.

The festival runs from 10th – 12th July 2014 and weekend tickets are available here for £75: www.twothousandtreesfestival.co.uk