Drop The Beat music festival is here!

Drop The Beat’s gates open today at 3pm with hundreds of music lovers expected to descend on Towneley Park for a weekend of live acts, great food and hopefully fine weather.

The festival moved to Towneley in 2014 and returns this year boasting an extra day and its biggest line-up to date.

The event rus from 3pm until 11pm today with Saturday’s entertainment taking place between noon and 11pm.

Soul Revolution, Ska Face, The Sex Pistols Experience, Kings Of Lyon play today along with DJs Lee Simon, Steve Hindley and Chris Dean.

Were you at Drop The Beat last year - relive the memories here

On Saturday, the Clone Roses, Oasis Experience, Happy Mondaze and Jeramiah Ferrari will be joined by DJs Krysko, Mark XTC, Jane Angel and many more.

Madge Nawaz, one of Drop The Beat’s organisers, said they are anticipating a weekend to remember.

“Everything is ready to go and we can’t wait,” he said. “Drop The Beat has traditionally been a dance festival but we’re trying to move away from that with this event.

“We have a lot more going on this year and we’ve tried to put something on for everyone. There’s Northern soul, funk, punk, rock, indie, dance, everything.

“We want this festival to be a yearly event and we want it to get bigger and bigger. We always work closely with the council and there is certainly room to expand if everything goes well.

“Hopefully everybody from the town will come and support it. Burnley definitely needs this. A town of its size should have its own festival.”

The festival helped to raise more than £2,000 last year for Furniture Education Worldwide. Money raised from the event this year will go to Pendleside Hospice with donations also being made to the Friends of Towneley.

Madge said: “This isn’t about making money or profits for us. We want something good for the town. Anything we make from the festival will go to charity and anything left over will go towards making next year’s festival even better. This is definitely not for personal financial gain, believe me.

“It’s is a five to 10 year plan. One day we’ll hopefully have a big festival with thousands of people coming.”

Tickets can still be bought from Empire Coffee Shop, CMYK Printing and Remedy Bar. For further ticket information as well as the full lineup go to www.dropthebeat.co.uk.