Beacons Festival is evolving and 2015 will see it step away from the home of Skipton and move to the cities of Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester. Under the new name of Beacons Metro, it will encompass a series of cutting edge events, taking place across the different cities. Film, music, art and food will continue to be at the heart of Beacons Metro. Further details are expected in March.

metro

Beacons Metro spokesman Simon Stevens said: “After a great deal of careful thought and consideration, the Beacons team would like to announce that for 2015, Beacons Festival will bidding farewell to the green fields and valleys of the Yorkshire Dales to take up a series of exciting residencies in Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool, 3 of the North of England's most vibrant and creative cities.

Despite then feeling that 2014 was the best Beacons Festival so far, the feedback we received from the vast majority of festival goers in 2014 was that the cost of attending a traditional, camping festival was becoming increasingly difficult to meet.

Our desire to make Beacons more accessible combined with the opportunity to work with some amazing partners at some truly unique spaces, was enough to convince us that the time was right to move onto the next stage of the festival's evolution".

In October 2015, Beacons will be taking over an incredible 3 storey, former textile mill in the heart of Leeds city centre. We'll be collaborating with some amazing partners to deliver a full 12 week program of cutting edge music, art, film and food events in over 11,000 square feet of previously unused space.

In Manchester and Liverpool the Beacons team will be collaborating on a number of exciting events in some amazing spaces.

Full venue, programming and ticketing information for all events will be released over the coming weeks but for now they are thrilled to announce a host of amazing partners for 2015 including Crack Magazine, Last.fm, Resident Advisor, Belgrave Music Hall, Now Wave, Super Friendz, 2020Vision, Noisey.com, Leeds International Film Festival, Light Night, No Gloss Film Festival, Flux, Leeds Indie Food, Vice Films, Recon Festival, Village Bookstore, Melodic Records, Balearic Social Club, Welcome Skate Store and Bad Vibrations.

"Finally, we'd like to apologise to all those who have already purchased early bird tickets for 2015. We have already contacted all customers and will be arranging full refunds as soon as possible. The team would also like to thank everyone who's attended Beacons Festival in it's various guises over the past years, we hope you're as excited as we are about our plans for 2015! “