The Southern Daily Echo has revealed here that Rob da Bank has plans to start a new two day music family-friendly festival called Common People for up to 30,000 on Southampton Common.

Rob commented he wants to see acts playing between midday -11pm “make Southampton proud”. “There will be a big headliner, a really good cross-section from rock, indie and pop to dance music. We want it to appeal to everyone.

“We have been inundated with offers to start new festivals every year but it wasn’t until we found the beautiful site of the Common that we felt it was right to start a new chapter in Bestival’s history.

“This isn’t a camping show, it’s not a tents, wellies and car packed to the rafter’s experience. It’s a metropolitan two-day show easy to access and open to all ages, compact but packed with experiences and priced very, very reasonably.

“There’s still lots of people that want to go to a three or four day festival but equally there are people that just want that little bite of a festival.

“We just want to be in that market.”

Tickets to the event will cost around £25 and the event will be staged on the weekend of 23rd and 24th May 2015, details of acts to appear will be announced in the New Year.

City council leader Cllr Simon Letts said Common People had his full support. He said: “We think it will be a great event. Bestival have got a good record of putting on festivals which are family-oriented. 

“We had a number of offers to hold an event on The Common and this one that fits the bill the best. We’re really delighted.

“It gives us comfort to know that the event will be of a high quality and well organised. We’re looking forward to it.”

Cllr Letts added that he had been assured that organisers would make a donation to Southampton Common and Parks Protection Society.

Read more of the story here.