BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend

Location(s)	United Kingdom (touring)
Years active	2003 – present
Founded by	BBC Radio 1
Date(s)	Varies
Genre	Pop music Rock music Dance music
Website	http://www.bbc.co.uk/events/e82wrz

BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend (previously known as One Big Weekend, and for 2012 as Radio 1's Hackney Weekend) is a music festival run by BBC Radio 1. It is held once a year, in a different location within the United Kingdom each time. It is the biggest free ticketed music event in Europe and always includes a host of new artists.

The festival is a spin-off of Radio 1's 'One Big Sunday', where every Sunday during July and August, a different town would host the roadshow, usually next to a beach or in a large park. These were also free, but non-ticketed. A show in Falkirk in 1999 attracted in excess of 500,000 people, ten times the expected amount. People eventually had to be turned away.

Both the 'One Big Sunday' and 'One Big Weekend' events are successors to the Radio 1 Roadshow which toured the country during every summer from 1973 until the 1990s.

Originally a 'One Big Weekend' would run twice a year. The Saturday was dedicated to dance music and the Sunday to bands. But since 2005, the dance day has been replaced by a second day of bands. In 2005, the dance music took place on a second stage on the Saturday only^[1] and in 2006 it took place off site at a club on the Saturday night.^[2] The 'Saturday' of dance music was effectively reinstated for the 2013 event in Northern Ireland, but with the day of dance being held on the Friday of the weekend.

The Big Weekend was replaced by a larger festival in 2012, named 'Radio 1's Hackney Weekend', with a crowd capacity of 50,000. The event took place over the weekend of 23–24 June 2012 in Hackney, East London.^[3]

In 2013 the Big Weekend will be a three day event, and will be held in Derry/Londonderry, Northern Ireland. It will the first time that the Big Weekend has been held in the same city for a second time.

Venues [edit]

Tickets [edit]

Tickets to the festival are, notably, free (except the small booking fee which was introduced from the 2012 event onwards) but are usually now restricted to one pair per person. Prior to 2006, a ticket booth would be set up in an easy location in the centre of the hosting city, and anybody who wished to obtain a pair of tickets would queue up, before a Radio 1 DJ gave them out (pairs of tickets for the Saturday given away on a Saturday and on the following day for the Sunday), on a first-come first-served basis. The theory there was that the majority of tickets would go to local residents, as people from further away would not make the journey. However, as more and more 'non-local' residents came to the giveaways, and the capacity at the events grew year-on-year, it was decided that a different system was needed. From 2006, therefore, pairs of tickets have been given away through an online lottery. People wishing to attend register on the BBC Radio 1 website and pairs of tickets are then randomly allocated and given out. In order to make sure that those who live locally get the majority of tickets, the applications are split into categories of 'local postcodes' and 'other postcodes' and the majority of the tickets (usually 95%) are reserved for the former. Despite the tickets being free, some people often attempt to sell them on eBay, and in recent years this has meant that various security measures have been introduced, most notably the barcodes on tickets which are scanned at the gate, the rule that the person whose name is registered on the ticket has to be in attendance and, from 2012, passport-style pictures being required as part of the application process. Tickets are also given away as prizes via various competitions held on Radio 1 (and now 1Xtra) in the weeks running up to the event, which is usually the only way in which members of the public can obtain passes for both days of the event. For the 2013 event, no pre-registration is necessary, and instead all tickets will be given away on a 'first come first served' basis - albeit still with the skewing of 90% of tickets being held back for residents of Northern Ireland.

For the 2006 event in Dundee, less than half of the tickets were given to local residents,^[5] and allegations were made of postal workers stealing tickets.^[6]

2013 [edit]

The new Radio 1 Breakfast Show host Nick Grimshaw announced that the Big Weekend would return to Derry/Londonderry in May 2013, the same city that hosted the first of the two 2004 Big Weekends (although the actual site is different). For the first time, the Big Weekend will extend to a third day. Alongside that initial announcement were the confirmation of the first two acts, Olly Murs and Two Door Cinema Club, with the rest of the line-up being announced by Grimshaw during another Radio 1 Breakfast Show on Monday 6 May. The venues of this years Big Weekend will be in the heart of the city, with 2 stages in the Ebrington site, one stage at the Vital Venue tent, and another in the square itself. It is currently unclear which stage will be where.

Line-up [edit]

Friday 24 May

Saturday 25 May

Sunday 26 May

2012 [edit]

On 23 May 2011, it was announced that for 2012, Radio 1 would be replacing the Big Weekend with a 'Hackney Weekend' to form part of the London 2012 Festival, in the build up to the 2012 Olympics.^[3] The festival duly took place on the Hackney Marshes over the weekend of 23 and 24 June 2012.

50,000 people attended each of the two days in 2012, meaning a total of 100,000 people visited the site over the weekend: more than double the previous highest attendances (40,000 across the weekends in each of 2010 and 2011). Due to the upgraded scale of the festival, the number of stages were increased (from four to six) and, for the first time, the Main Stage was outdoors rather than inside a tent.

Florence + The Machine were initially announced as playing on Saturday 23 June, but a double booking at another European festival meant that they actually performed on Sunday 24 June.^[7]

The Ting Tings were initially announced as to be playing on Saturday 23 June, but due to logistical reasons beyond their control they had to pull out of the bill.^[8]

On both days of the festival, a number of unannounced special guests performed with artists on the bill, the most noteworthy of which were Rihanna, M.I.A. and Kanye West appearing as part of Jay-Z's headlining set on Saturday; and, in turn, Jay-Z went on to return the favour and make a special multiple-song contribution during Rihanna's own headlining set the next day.

Headline Sets [edit]

Line-up [edit]

Saturday 23 June

Sunday 24 June

2011 [edit]

The announcement of location and dates for Radio 1's Big Weekend 2011 was made by Scott Mills on 30 March 2011, with his breakfast show (he was covering for Chris Moyles that week) being broadcast from Trinity School, Carlisle that morning. Over 750,000 people applied for tickets to the event.^[9]

20,000 pairs of tickets were available for the two-day event with the usual allocation policy applying. It was announced that the priority areas for tickets would be the borders of Carlisle, Cumbria, the Scottish Borders and the North East of England.

As usual, competitions to win VIP tickets were run on various Radio 1 shows in the weeks leading up to the Big Weekend.

Headline Sets [edit]

Line-up [edit]

Saturday 14 May^[10]

Sunday 15 May

TV & radio coverage [edit]

Radio 1's Big Weekend 2011 was streamed live on the Radio 1 website. The headliners of each day (Foo Fighters and Lady Gaga on Saturday and Sunday respectively) were broadcast live on BBC Three and BBC HD. The Big Weekend was also broadcast live on BBC Radio 1. Highlights of the event were also broadcast on BBC Three and BBC HD during the week following the Big Weekend.

2010 [edit]

On 24 February 2010, it was announced on The Chris Moyles Show that the 10th Big Weekend would take place on the Faenol Estate near Bangor, Wales on Saturday 22 May and Sunday 23 May 2010. Pixie Lott also performed on the show and was announced as the first act on the bill and Lostprophets was announced while they were on tour. Jaguar Skills announced on his website that he would be playing at the event, but he was not on the announced line-up. On the morning of 26 April 2010, the full main stage and INMWT stage listings were announced during the Fearne Cotton Show (which was hosted by Annie Mac, as Cotton was on vacation).

20,000 pairs of free tickets were made available to the public for each day of the weekend. Applicants were able to register for tickets to the event on the Radio 1 website from 26 April 2010 until 3 May 2010.

Line-up [edit]

Saturday 22 May^[11]

Sunday 23 May

Live Lounge Tent

2009 [edit]

The 2009 event was held in Swindon.

Line-up [edit]

Saturday 9 May

Sunday 10 May

2008 [edit]

In 2008, the festival was held over the weekend of Saturday 10 May and Sunday 11 May, at Mote Park in Maidstone, which can hold up to 20,000 people.^[12] 85% of tickets went to people living in Kent, 10% went to those living in areas bordering Kent, including parts of Sussex, Surrey, Essex and London, and the other 5% were handed to others living across the United Kingdom.^[13] Concern was raised after a large number of locals commented that even those living within the close vicinity of the park did not receive tickets, with some in the Medway towns winning multiple times.^[14]

Headline Sets [edit]

Line-up [edit]

The full line-up (except for Paramore) was announced on BBC Radio 1 on Monday 21 April 2008.^[15]

Saturday 10 May

Sunday 11 May

The national newspapers had also reported that Justin Timberlake could be a special guest - performing with Madonna.^[16] Although this later turned out to be untrue. Pendulum were hailed as one of the festivals' best acts, outshining even Madonna and packing the INMWT tent.^[17]

• On the main stage on 10 May 2008, Paul Schrader, Chris Carmack and Rachel McAdams appeared whilst doing promotional work for Tarzan.

2007 [edit]

On Saturday 19 May and Sunday 20 May, Radio 1's Big Weekend was held in Moor Park in Preston.

For the first time in the history of the event, all tickets had barcodes and were scanned on arrival at the park. The barcodes contained information such as name and address of the winner of the tickets. Having the barcodes meant that Radio 1 could cancel lost or stolen tickets and issue new ones to those affected. In an effort to stop people buying tickets from eBay or through other mediums, the public was told they would be asked to prove their home address if their tickets were thought to be suspect.^[18] However, the BBC decided to scrap this idea on the day as they thought it would cause angry scenes if people were to be turned away.

At the close of entry on 8 May 2007, over 450,000 people registered for a chance to get tickets for the 2007 festival. On Tuesday 8 May on The Chris Moyles Show, Chris announced that a further 5,000 tickets will be available taking the total for both days being 35,000.

Tickets were also given away in an alternate reality game online using Radio 1 fan forums. The situation surrounded a man called Paul Denchfield who was supposedly sacked from the station. Throughout the run up to the event 'Frozen Indigo Angel' would appear in various places online and on-air, with it being the player's mission to hunt down tickets.^[19]

The line up was as follows:

Line-up [edit]

Saturday 19 May^[20]

Sunday 20 May^[21]

2006 [edit]

In 2006, the Big Weekend was held in Camperdown Park, Dundee on 13 and 14 May 2006 and featured artists which included:

Line-up [edit]

Saturday 13 May

Sunday 14 May

Many of the BBC Radio 1 DJ's including Pete Tong, Tim Westwood and Chris Moyles attended too, and held a number of competitions so that people could win tickets. In addition, Radio 1 also created a virtual festival experience in the virtual reality application Second Life.^[22] Avatars on the BBC Radio 1 islands could watch the event on live screens while the audience could see their virtual counterparts on massive stage side screens at the real event in Dundee. The event was hailed as the first ever festival with a professional line-up to take place in a virtual universe.^[22]

2005 [edit]

In 2005, the Big Weekend was held at Penshaw Monument in Herrington Country Park, Sunderland on 7 and 8 May 2005 and featured artists which included:

Line-up [edit]

Saturday 7 May

Sunday 8 May

Notes [edit]

External links [edit]

• Official website