Festival unveiled today

Aug 21 2007 by David Bartlett, Liverpool Daily Post

INITIAL details for this weekend’s scaled-down Mathew Street Festival will be unveiled today.

But the finalised programme of events is unlikely to be published until Friday, just 48 hours before the bank holiday event gets under way.

Last night, politicians and organisers said Merseysiders should not let the political fiasco get in the way of them having fun on Sunday and Monday, when around 62,000 people are expected to descend on the city.

Liverpool’s Lib-Dem leader, Cllr Warren Bradley, last night thanked the city’s bars and clubs for offering their services.

“The fiasco around the festival is being investigated and the full and proper findings will be made transparent and open to people,” he said.

“On the back of that we have got a fabulous set of events going ahead for that weekend and it will go off wonderfully well.

“Every band that was scheduled to perform on the Mathew Street stages will perform at one venue or another throughout the city on the Sunday or the Monday, and road closures will be in force on some streets, which will add to the festival atmosphere. A tremendous amount of effort has gone into making it happen and all credit must go to the bars and clubs that have come forward.”

Bands that would have been playing at the biggest outdoor stage at The Strand have now been switched to what is one of the largest alternative indoor venues, the University of Liverpool’s 1,500 to 2,000 capacity Mountford Hall. Music lovers have dubbed the hastily re-arranged event the “Not-the-Mathew Street Festival”.

Other venues definitely taking part include The Krazy House, the Picket, Metro, the Rat and Parrott, Zanzibar, Heebie-Jeebies, Korova, Pan Am, Babycream and Blue.

Alan Jackson, technical consultant at Mountford Hall, said the student guild had put its summer refit on hold to accommodate parts of the event.

Cllr Joe Anderson, leader of the Labour group, said: “Mathew Street started in the pubs and clubs of the city and has gone from strength to strength. Please don’t let the fiasco of the last few weeks dampen Mersey- siders’ enthusiasm for this event.”

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