Tweed Fest came about in the summer of 2010 when a group of friends came together to organise a mini festival featuring a couple of local acts at our friend Matthew Tweeds farm. We cleared out a barn on his land and turned it into a small live venue. It was organised in about 2/3 days and had about 30/40 people attend and was a great success. This time teaming up with Matthews father, the legendar
y W***y Tweed. W***y having played bass in bands over the years and still currently rocking the bass, was more than happy to get involved and very generously offered up his land to accommodate the festival. He works extremely hard to make the festival happen with a small team of people including the Tweed family. The festival, now approaching its fifth year, has played host to some amazing bands such as Axis Of, AbandcalledBoy, Lantern For a Gale, Bomb City 7, Event Horses, Two Glass Eyes (To name a few) We have went from 30/40 people attending to 100s. We have been amazed at the support and love we have been shown in the last few years and cant wait to see where it will be in years to come. Now comes the important bit -
Tweed Fest is a non profit organisation. We have never made any money any of the years we have been running. We do this because we love music and the NI music scene. But running a festival to this standard has its costs. We have to hire a local sound team (The Moyle Music Collective) to set up and run the sound for the event. We also hire a lot of port-a-loos, lighting equipment and fences to keep people safe. Not to mention some landscaping to make sure people don't get overly dirty getting to and from the campsite. All that we have ever asked is that the cost are covered. We tried relying on donations a couple of years, but this didn't work and actually left W***y losing money from his own pocket some years and left us questioning if we could actually keep the festival running. We now charge an extremely small admission fee solely to cover ours costs. We have never even made enough to pay our bands to play. Instead we ask our bands to help share our passion for live music and perform for free. People coming together to make something special. We are extremely proud of everything we have achieved so far and look forward to the future. ROCK N ROLL! The TweedFest Team
