Wakefield Live: Team behind Long Division set up new festival to celebrate the city with music and family events

The vision for the live music and culture festival was to create an event which celebrated local talent and drew touring acts into Wakefield. And a decade on, Long Division places the best emerging grassroots artists from in and around the city alongside legends of the – largely – Indie and DIY music scene.

Now Dean and his team are preparing for the first ever Wakefield Live, a free one-day event to celebrate the city and its creatives. “It comes from our experience of doing Long Division,” Den says. “It’s busy and successful but there are two difficulties with it. It is ticketed which can create a barrier when it comes to finances and also risk – if you don’t know who the bands are, you aren’t going to go see them.

"Also, we’re restricted as to what venues you can work with. We have to close the venue so if you haven’t got a ticket you can’t come in, so little pubs and cafes for example can’t easily get involved.”

The idea for Wakefield Live is a programme created by the community for the community, bringing together venues such as restaurants, shops and historic buildings, with some of the city’s creative people for a series of events on September 17.

“We invited the venues, promoters and artists of the city to send us their ideas and what they wanted to see happen in Wakefield,” Dean explains. “Most venues have organised their own events, but we have used some funding to support first time promoters create their own events too. So it is intended as a very democratic approach to festival programming where it is made by the city for the city.”

About half of the line-up is music, sitting alongside activities aimed at young families, as well as a pop-up cinema, comedy stage and a silent disco. Highlights include a performance by Leeds band The Dunwells, the premiere of a new documentary about the history of Wakefield Music and dance and singing workshops.

The festival has been several years in the making, with Dean first applying for funding from the Arts Council to help make it happen back in 2019. The idea was for it to take place in September 2020 – though it was never announced, but rethinking was required in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Now Dean hopes to see Wakefield Live join Long Division as an annual event, the latter running at the start of the summer and Wakefield Live at the end.

“We want to drive footfall into the city, because businesses need it,” he says. “Hopefully it will benefit not just those venues who are part of it but the city centre as a whole. I hope it opens people’s eyes to the breadth of talent in Wakefield and makes people appreciate live events and their value in terms of how vibrant they can make a city centre. We need to get people out there and enjoying themselves.”

Visit wakefieldlive.org/