The North East experienced its first ever rock and dance music festival this weekend. Hi:Fi North attracted 12,000 people to the stunningly beautiful Northumbrian countryside of the Matfen Estate, an excellent result for year one. Organisers and local residents have been quick to praise the event management team for their high production values. The event made festival history as the first ever to programme rock gods and DJ deities alongside each other, spoiling crowds with a sonic feast of quality music and party tunage.

Hi:Fi North was headlined by Ian Brown who gave an unforgettable performance of both Stone Roses classics and solo material. The crowds chanted his name and have equally rapturous receptions for bands such as Dirty Pretty Things and local heroes Maximo Park who were delighted to play the first festival of this kind in the North East and announced on stage that they hoped it would become an annual occurrence.

The Godskitchen Arena with its mind blowing production inflatables and lazer displays saw stand out performances from Sasha and Digweed who delivered one of their now legendary back to back sets.

The Electric Arena saw people dance from dusk to dawn to the likes of US house supremo, Erick Morillo and The Shapeshifters who?s popular brand of soulful funky house went down a storm.

Things got slightly more musically twisted in the Radio Soulwax Arena where 2ManyDJs performed an incredible DJ set up of mash ups and bootlegs and topped off their show with a live performance from their band Nite Versions.

The hugely popular Strongbow Ciderhouse offered another musical dimension to the festival with a fantastic line up of hip hop dance fusions from the likes of Switch and Barry Ashworth. The VIP arena hosted by Hed Kandi and their funky, sexy dance became a hang out to Dirty Pretty Things who posed for photos with members of the crowd to their delight!

The Angel Music Group invested a great deal of time and money to ensure the event was tightly managed and extremely well produced. Despite a technical issue caused by the extreme weather conditions during set up earlier in the week, the event went without a hitch. The sound and light displays were highly impressive and crowds were impressed with the state-of-the-art marquee?s.

The crowds themselves were nothing short of brilliant proving why Northerners are some of the best fun party people in the UK! No problems were reported on site: noone was ejected and there wasn?t any kind of disruption. Sadly a minor was taken to hospital for a short period and organisers are currently investigating how he came to be on site despite a robust searching and ticket check procedure jointly manned by a two fold line of security and police checks at the entrance.

The traffic management systems put in place were completely effective. Local residents told organisers the roads were quiet. The very windy weather conditions caused some technical sound problems with onsite sound management, though there were few complaints of any off site noise problems and all were followed up. On these two subjects, local resident Mrs Porteous, who lives a mile from the site says, ?It was fantastic. We live very near and we heard no noise disturbances. The roads seemed quieter than normal. The event was really well managed and the crowds were ever so friendly.?

James Algate sums it up by saying: ?It was an ambitious undertaking hosting the first ever festival of the North East. Year one can always prove more problematic as local residents and services can fear the worse as is natural. With the negative press publicity, the anxiety from local residents and the adverse weather conditions the numbers weren?t as high as we had hoped but we still feel it is a great start. We are extremely proud of the team effort that went into guaranteeing a safe event that ran smoothly and gave music lovers a night to remember for the rest of their lives whilst causing minimal disruption to local residents.?

Sir Hugh Blackett of the Matfen Estate says: “I attended the event with my family. I thought that the bands were good and was pleased that everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. The atmosphere was very friendly and I was not surprised to hear that there were no disturbances or breaches of the peace during or following the event. Neither was there a local crimewave as had been predicted. Angel Music Group proved themselves to be a highly professional and competent company. As Patron of the Rainbow Trust, I was delighted that it was one of the beneficiaries of the discounted ticket scheme only available to local residents – a scheme which attracted me when I was first approached last year.”

Hi:Fi North experienced a full mixture of glorious British spring time weather and a good douse of rain cooled everyone down after rocking their socks off in the five state of the art arenas.
For images of the event please go to http://gallery.hififestival.com where you can download shots. Images have also been uploaded by the crowds.