Credit: BBC

Disappointment for Cardiff music fans as BBC Radio 6 Festival moves to Manchester

BBC Radio 6 Festival will move to its “permanent home” of Greater Manchester, leaving fans of the Cardiff music scene disappointed.

The first BBC Radio 6 Festival took place in Manchester in 2014, but was held in Cardiff last year.

The live music weekend included artists such as Khruangbin, Little Simz, Gruff Rhys and Bloc Party.

The BBC told CJS News that the move is part of plans to move Radio 6 Music to Salford.

“We are strengthening our commitment to Greater Manchester by making the region the festival’s permanent home”.

Dylan Jenkins is a Cardiff based DJ, who’s also known as DJ Dilys. Although he says it’s a shame the festival won’t be travelling to different cities in the future, Cardiff “is a more creative option” than Manchester.

“Cardiff at the moment has a very exciting music scene with lots of up and coming bands in English and in Welsh. This is very in keeping with Radio 6 Festival’s general ethos of trying to be a music discovery platform”.

Together with the city’s grassroots music venues, Dylan says it’s “an exciting place to be musically”.

Although he thinks “Manchester is well equipped to host the festival, Cardiff is a better option in the sense it’s more exciting and it’s more different”.

Gareth James, who attended the festival last year, is also disappointed with the decision. He says it’s “a real shame to see Radio 6 Festival move to a major English city just like everything else seems to be now a days”.

Talking about his experience last year, he said “it was great to see these big music acts coming to Cardiff, particularly Khruangbin. They came all the way from Texas and had never visited Wales before”.

Credit: BBC

Although the festival won’t be coming back to Cardiff in the future, the BBC say they “continue to support artists from across the UK and beyond”.