Festival Preview: Underneath the Stars

Underneath the Stars festival will return this summer (July 29-31, 2022) with an all-female headline bill to Cinderhill Farm, Barnsley.

The music and arts festival will feature a selection of performances from established and emerging talent across folk, indie, Americana, ska, and soul, with more than 20 performances taking place over the weekend. Families can look forward to performance arts, crafts, and workshops guaranteed to keep little ones entertained as well as a whole host of delicious food and drink stalls sourced from independent vendors.

Underneath the Stars has been pushing to include more female artists and become a gender-balanced festival. In recent years, the issue of achieving gender-balanced festivals has been high on the industry’s agenda. Underneath the Stars programmer, Eddie Barcan of Splendid Events, has worked alongside Vicky Bain from the F-List, a directory of UK Female+ Musicians, to help perfect the line-up of female talent, pushing for more female artists in festival billings and working towards making inclusion and diversity the norm.

A highlight to look forward to this year is Imelda May, one of Ireland’s most celebrated female artists and star of this year’s Glastonbury line-up, as well as fan-favourite and Barnsley’s own nightingale Kate Rusby. Closing the weekend in spectacular fashion is Suzanne Vega.

Underneath the Stars festival director Emma Holling says: “We’re thrilled to be welcoming an incredible line-up of all-female headliners to this year’s Underneath the Stars festival.”

Weekend tickets are available to buy here: https://underneaththestarsfest.co.uk/tickets/

Main image: Kate Rusby