Festival News

Promoter Marcel Avram is launching a new electronic music festival in Switzerland, Turkey and Israel. Isle of Dreams will feature local DJ talent alongside the biggest international artists. Each event will take place over a three day period in August 2014 and are planned as the major electronic music event for each country. Confirmed artists include Above & Beyond, Alesso, Apollonia, Avicii, Axwell, Calvin Harris, Chuckie, Fedde Le Grand, Gareth Emery, Jamie Jones, Nervo, Paul Oakenfold, Paul van Dyk, Pete Tong, R3hab, Sebastian Ingrosso, Sasha, Steve Aoki and Zedd.


Hungary's Sziget Festival has moved its dates a week later from the busy first weekend in August period, in order to attract more international artists.

Irish festival Oxegen will not take place this year, its organiser MCD have confirmed, citing a "lack of suitable headline acts" combined with an increasing financial strain on the event.

AAA tells us that Liverpool Sound City is going cashless. The May 1-3 event has teamed up with ZNAP, a global mobile business platform, and hopes to improve the Sound City experience by offering mobile payment services. To use ZNAP at Sound City, ticketholders must download the app (available from the Google Play or Apple App stores) and register their credit or debit card details. Once they have arrived at the festival, they can pair their near field communication (NFC) wristbands with the ZNAP app. Wherever a ZNAP sign is displayed, punters can tap their wristbands on the NFC reader to pay.

Croatia's INmusic festival have announced the finalists of their talent contest organised by festival travel company eufest and Band Crusade - All About the Music. the 500 emerging acts from across the UK have been whittled down to just five for the final on May 2nd -  soul/rock outfit The River 68s, indie-pop trio Faitala, electronic rock act Stop Drop Robot, blues rockers The Black Hands and Manchester based alternative rock band BÊTE.