Southport Disco Festival is back with its winter edition at The Bliss Hotel in Southport this November.
The event will take place on Saturday 27th November following the success of the last festival, which took place at Victoria Park in the summer and went down a storm with people from all over the North West travelling over for it.
This bi-annual event is organised by local DJ and musician Mark Pickup, who is no stranger to putting on events.
He said: “With the lack of nightclubs and music events in the town and people having to travel to Manchester or Liverpool to listen to decent House and Disco, I thought I’d create Southport Disco Festival.
“I’m absolutely overwhelmed by the response so far, so much so that this time round I’ve added a ‘House Classics Room’ so we can cover the two genres, therefore opening the event up to more people.”
So what can we expect musically? Well, fresh from orchestrating Cream Classical at Liverpool Pier Head, K-Klass are headlining the House Classics Room and will be playing their huge 90s rave anthems including ‘Rhythm Is A Mystery’ and ‘Show Me Love’.
They will be supported by some huge local names from the 90s noughties, Mark Pickup, Lee Groves and Nick Rees.
Mark Pickup, who used to be resident at Club Code, Bar Non and Zebra Square in Southport back in the day, will be playing alongside Lee Groves, who many will remember from Manhattans and The Glasshouse back in the 90s. Lee will be doing a House Classics vinyl only set and hasn’t played out for many years so this will be something special.
Alongside Mark and Lee will be another 90s local legend in Nick Rees. The original Bar Flava resident will be spinning an eclectic House set and if any of you remember his sets from Flava back in the day you can expect nothing short of spectacular.
Supporting in this room will be B-Funk who played at Defected Croatia 2019 by winning their mix competition and the live stream king Al Cunningham.
There will be a VOID sound system going into the venue especially for this event.
The Disco Room is headlined by two ‘in the now’ Disco edit record labels, Midnight Riot represented by their A&R Jagerossa. They have released tracks by artists such as Dr Packer, Joey Negro, Michael Grey, Qwestife, Yam Who to name a very small few and are renowned for releasing funk fuelled Disco edits.
Hot Gorilla Records will be represented by label bosses Andy Buchan and Conan The Selector and whilst only in their second year have already released music from artists such as Fingermann, Monsieur Von Pratt, Chewy Rubbs, Cuz Electric and dozens more. They have notched up several No.1s on various music platforms and have an album in the making.
They are currently on tour with The Brand New Heavies as their official support act but are taking a break from the tour to come and perform at the Southport Disco Festival.
Their co-label boss Conan The Selector is the Disco alias of Mark Pickup.
He said: “It was great in the summer to bring the sounds of Hot Gorilla records to my home town to show people what our label is all about.
“Both Andy and I are looking forward to doing it all again in November.”
Support on the Disco Terrace is coming from Camille Cee, Adam Rynhart, Paul Hollinshead and Alex Hibbard.
You can check out the after movie from their last event in Victoria Park here.
A percentage of the profits will be going to the Southport Soup Kitchen to support their Christmas appeal to help those less fortunate locally.
Mark Pickup said: “During Christmas 2019 we collected winter coats for the homeless and did over 40 journeys throughout November and December, collecting people’s spare fleeces and coats. We wanted to do that again this year as it was very well received but due to Covid we didn’t think it would have as much impact as people don’t really want strangers turning up at their front door in the current climate. The timing of this event, being the end of November, means we can still support the vulnerable for Christmas. I raised just over £1,000 doing a charity live stream for the Southport Soup Kitchen during lock down last summer and it’s a local charity that iI like to support and I’m made up that Bliss Hotel has offered to match my donation also.”
Southport Disco Festival first general release tickets are available now for £20 via the ticket site Skiddle, rising to £30 in November. There are also several VIP tables available, for groups of 6 or 8. To buy tickets visit: http://skiddle.com/e/35907592 or if you have any questions please head to the Southport Disco Festival Facebook page or call / Whatsapp the team via 07484739175.
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