Last year, about 100,000 music fans attended the event in Sefton Park in Liverpool, which was dubbed “Scouse Coachella“.
Tom Grennan, Sam Fender and Mumford & Sons topped the bill, while Ed Sheeran made a surprise appearance and JADE, from Little Mix, got teary on stage.
About 90% of the tickets for the most recent Big Weekend went to locals, but Liverpool City Council had to defend spending £250,000 on hosting the event, saying the funding was from its events budget and the festival was great publicity for the city.
In 2023, the event generated nearly £7m for Luton’s economy following half a million pounds of investment.
Radio 1’s Big Weekend is the latest in a string of music events being held in the north-east of England after the Mercury Prize and Mobo Awards were hosted in the north earlier this year.
Sunderland City Council is working closely with the BBC to make sure it is a “safe, inclusive and enjoyable event”, according to the broadcaster.
Leader of the council, councillor Michael Mordey, said it was “a fantastic opportunity to show people who haven’t been to Sunderland, what a brilliant city it is and how much is happening here”.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.bbc.co.uk ’
