The Charlatans to headline Friends Of Mine Festival

A brand new 10,000 capacity weekend festival has been unveiled for Cheshire next May, with confirmed early headliners including local boys The Charlatans, A Certain Ratio, The Phantom Band, Black Lips, and Jim Noir.

When the organisers of Manchester bands showcase Friends Of Mine hosted a stage at the city's final ever D:Percussion festival in 2007, it planted the germ of an idea to do their own festival on a bigger scale – a proper, bands-in-a-field, camping-over, fun-packed, three-day extravaganza.

The family friendly Friends Of Mine Festival will be a brand new 10,000 capacity weekend festival happening at Capesthorne Hall, Cheshire on Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd May 2011.

The first Friends Of Mine took place in October 2004 in a bar in Fallowfield, South Manchester. "Little did we know then that by 2008 we'd have a monthly Liverpool and a fortnightly London FOM running alongside, and that we would not to go more than four weeks without a Manchester show until April 2010 when festival planning took over," says founder Gardner. "The ethos for the Festival has come from the same idea as the original club night: maybe we can do one of our own."

Other acts for the Satellite & Lake Stages are Aziz Ibrahim, Wild Palms, The Travelling Band, Black Daniel, Natalie Findlay, Electricity In Our Homes.

Aside from the musical entertainment on the main stage, the Big Top stage and the acoustic stage, there'll be a dedicated tent for stand-up comedy, spoken word and poetry, and a marquee run by events company House Party. There's also a cinema tent showing Manchester-centric movies 'Control' and '24 Hour Party People' plus cult classics and a special screening of 'Mr Nice' introduced by Howard Marks himself.

Joining Howard Marks on the bill for the Big Top & House Party! will be , Dave Haslam (Hacienda), Stephan Morris (Joy Division / New Order), Good Vibrations, Douglas Hart (The Jesus & Mary Chain), Wasted Little DJs, Same Teens, Friends of Mine DJs, Disco Mums, Breakfast With Yoshimi and Zaireeka,Black Cat DJs, Black Daniel DJs, Martin Moscrop (A Certain Ratio), Tim Burgess, The Gavin Watson Project, and Mike Joyce (The Smiths / 6 Music).

More names are to be confirmed across four stages in the coming weeks.

Tickets are priced at £89.50 including camping. Parking is priced at £7.50 per car, and a campervan or caravan pass is priced at £40. To buy tickets, click here.

"Manchester is the nation's music capital but it doesn't have a festival to call its own," says Sam Gardner. "We're setting out to put that right."

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