THE news of a brand-new music festival which will see global icons come to East Lancashire has been met with applause by the people of Blackburn.

Summerfest, which will take place of Ewood Park in May, was announced on Friday and will see names such as Boy George, the Human League and UB40 featuring Ali Campbell coming to the Red Rose County to entertain the masses.

Three stages will be built in and around the stadium to provide for a weekend full of music and good times.

Hundreds of people have now reacted to the news as excitement builds for the forthcoming event.

Paul Tansey said: “[It will] be good to wind the clock back a few decades when they were all successful including the venue, might even get a decent crowd.”

Dang Lin-Wang added: “This is great for Blackburn, and hopefully not just a one-off.”

On the Lancashire Telegraph website, Saj1706 commented: “You know what it's been a crazy year and yet here we are as a town on the brink of city status, a football team that is making its supporters smile and believe again, billionaire brothers still operating an empire from the town - that's just a few things worthy of note. “Looks good going into 2022.”

Over the three days for May 27, Heather Small, Kim Wilde, Tony Hadley and Midge Ure will also take to the stage.

The event was originally set to take place in Wigan, but due to unforeseen circumstances a new venue had to be found, which brought organisers to Blackburn.

Founder of the event Tony Baldwin explained how he partnered with Andy Gregory, former Wigan and Great Britain Rugby League star, some years ago and started putting on events.

He said: “We have been doing events for a while and noticed than some festival line ups only had headliners and a support so we wanted to give music lovers a full day show.

“We also intend to showcase lots of grass root artists and young DJs in the Ibiza tent along with some massive names.

“A partnership with Blackburn Rovers is going to be fantastic for us all and we can hopefully make it an annual event.”

It will be the first event of its kind at the stadium since 15,000 spectators packed into Ewood Park to enjoy an evening with Sir Elton John back in June 2017 as part of his ‘Wonderful Crazy Night’ tour.

Tickets for SummerFest go on sale next Friday (January 7th) at 10am from www.summerfestevents.co.uk.