The sellout crowd from across Scotland descended on Park Farm, Dumfries last weekend for Youth Beatz with Choices for Life, the largest free youth music festival in Scotland. The audience of around 18,000 people on Saturday and 15,000 people on Sunday were entertained by performances on the OASIS CENTRE STAGE from up and coming acts Cortnë, Liv McDougall, Shuna Lovelle and Zak Scott followed by brilliant performances by SIGALA, JAX JONES, RUDIMENTAL AND MAGGIE LINDEMANN.
Social media has been going crazy over the performances throughout the weekend, and the acts themselves were getting involved. On Twitter, Kelli Leigh said “🙌 @youthbeatzofficial you were awesome yesterday! So lovely to meet you all. Amazing festival with a great heart! Happy 10th Anniversary 😘💚”
Sunday performers Rudimental said “Really enjoyed that! Big love to everyone that partied with us tonight @youthbeatzofficial”.
Returning for the tenth anniversary, Scottish act Nicholas McDonald said “What a day yesterday at @youthbeatzofficial Thank you to everyone who came out and showed there support ❤️✌”
THE TOON PRESENTS THE MASHUP, which is a major feature of Youth Beatz, is designed to be a hard hitting and shocking way of providing information to young people 14 – 25 about current issues that may be affecting them or may affect them in the future.
The interactive experience was host to over 3000 young people on the Youth Beatz weekend – that is on top of the schools shows and preview performances to 2000 young people in the week leading up to the festival weekend. Dumfries and Galloway Council’s Youth Work Service, together with partners, support a group of young volunteers to deliver the interactive youth zone by attendance at issue based training plus performance and production camps. The Toon invites groups of young people to experience issues focussed on domestic abuse, knife crime, drugs and alcohol, mental health and bullying in short interpretive scenes.
Some of the comments from young people who went through The Toon were:
“I learned more in an hour than I have in a year”
“The scene with the girl speaking about the death of her brother through drugs spoke to me. I went through the same.”
“The Toon really opened my eyes and helped me realise that other people have went through the same as me. I thought I was the only one who felt like that.”
Other attractions on the weekend included a wide range of youth work activities from Dumfries and Galloway Council’s Young Persons Services team, activities from the Lifelong Learning and Wellbeing Team promoting their services. Youth work partners promoted their services alongside partners from universities and colleges, and there was also a selection of stalls from local young people who have set up their own business and were there to exhibit their products and promote their businesses. The display area proved to be a massive success, and the Kids tent was non-stop all day. The performances delivered by local and national young people on the Upload Stage and the D&G’s Got Talent Stage really were extraordinary!
Paul Bush OBE, VisitScotland Director of Events, said:
“We were delighted to support Youth Beatz – Scotland’s largest free youth music event, expand its exciting offering in celebration of Scotland’s Year of Young People 2018.”
“The event has been offering a fantastic range of opportunities and entertainment for young people and their families since 2009. It has also put Scotland’s young people front and central to the development and design of the festival giving them an opportunity to showcase their talents and express their views. This year’s event once again put the region on the map, as well as reinforcing Scotland as the perfect stage for events to inspire all generations to come together and celebrate our inspirational young people.”
Young People’s Champion, Councillor Adam Wilson, commented on the Youth Beatz Festival saying “Dumfries and Galloway Council are once again thrilled by the high quality event that has been delivered in our Region, and enjoyed by more young people than ever before over one weekend. As the largest in Scotland’s Signature Events for Year of Young People 2018, we have highlighted what Dumfries and Galloway has to offer and put in on the map as a destination for young people from across the country. This couldn’t have been delivered without the valuable input of all of the dedicated staff, Events Team, and volunteers and we are very appreciative of all their outstanding efforts.”
The Vice Chair of Nithsdale Area Committee and Provost of Dumfries and Nithsdale Tracey Little said “It has been fantastic to see Dumfries so busy again with people of all ages having a great time, and the town thriving as host to such a fantastic event. It has been wonderful seeing so many agencies working hard to make the weekend enjoyable for everyone – not only those attending the festival. I’d like to thanks the local community groups for their input – the event wouldn’t be such a success without the input from all showing their talents throughout the day – it’s encouraging to see so many skills on our doorstep.”
One young person attending the festival over the weekend said; “Yesterday was #muad in Dumfries at @youthbeatzcouk!! Energy was electric and you turned out to party 🙌🙌🙌”
Another festival goer said “The music was fantastic and all well set out. A big hit for the region thank you for letting me and my family be a part of it”.
Families travelled from across Scotland for the event. One said “Can i just say well done to Dumfries and Galloway Council and all other companies and organisations that were involved for putting this together, we stayed for both days and our 3 kids had an amazingly brilliant best weekend of their lives was there verdict.”
The award winning event was managed through a partnership led by Dumfries and Galloway Council’s Young Persons Service in conjunction with the Oasis Events Team, Year of Young People 2018 and Event Scotland. Funding for the event has been secured from Choices for Life, Young Start, CashBack for Communities, CashBack for Creativity, Magnox, Creative Scotland, Alcohol and Drugs Partnership Dumfries and Galloway, and YouthLink Scotland.
The Council’s Young Persons Service would like to thank all partners involved in planning the event and hopefully look forward to building on the success in the future. To view pictures of the event go to www.youthbeatz.co.uk and follow links.
