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Back to the Future with Retro Music Festivals.

Andy Robertson

Over the last decade the interest and popularity of music festival that focus on music from previous generations has flourished. There is now a wide choice of retro music festivals for those interested in older music genres. Catering for those wishing to relive their youth because the current crop of popular festivals only offers the latest musical artists.    


Perhaps for certain generations, particularly the Gen Xers now in their forties and fifties they wear rose tinted glasses when looking back at their teenage years and for many the latest music genres just don't do it for them. Here is a selection of the most popular retro music festivals taking place in the UK and beyond in 2021.

Back2the80s (July 2021) 
The Manchester based film and music festival has been going for several years and offers a celebration of everything eighties, although don't expect to see many original artists as their line up primarily consists of tribute acts.

Lets Rock - The Retro Festival (June to August 2021) 
One of the longest running and most popular retro music festivals the Lets Rock Retro Festival has been going since 2009 and tours up to 14 city locations across the UK each year. This series of festivals attracts up to 150,000 visitors each year where aging original popular artists from the eighties fIll their line-up.

Retrofestival (June and August 2021) 
Based over two locations and dates (Newark in June and Newbury in August) each festival attracts up to 20,000 visitors with a focus of anything 20th century retro. Whilst not purely a music festival their themes are wheels, wings, steam, music, speed and dance making for a great cross generation family day out. 

The Retro Festival (August 2021) 
Run by the same group that organise the Lets Rock touring festival the Retro Festival features many of the same eighties line up of artists but operates under a separate entity in Ireland.

Ambleside Retro Festival (August 2021)
The classic rock festival has been running in Vancouver, Canada since 2013 and attracts up to 20,000 visitors each year. 

RetroMusic Festival June 2021.
A celebration of retro music from the 70s 80s and 90s this popular retro festival in Bucharest, Romania features the best original artists performing disco, pop, rock and rap and attracts 35,000 visitors each year.

This demonstrates how just about any genre of music can create a sizable and poular event or music festival. This is good news for those performance artists that were popular several decades ago, no need to reinvent themselves as there is a captive audience happy to watch and hear their original material. It's also good news for the thousands of fans perhaps stuck in the past, it appears that there is always a demand for retro music. 

For any retro music festival organisers planning their 2021 events using a software management platform like
Festival Pro gives them all the functionality they need to plan every aspect of their event. The guys who are responsible for this software have been in the front line of event management for many years and the features are built from that experience and are performance artists themselves. The Festival Pro platform is easy to use and has comprehensive features with specific modules for managing artists, contractors, vendors, volunteers, sponsors guestlists and ticketing. 

Image by Pixabay via Pexels

Andy Robertson
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