{"id":18686,"date":"2020-06-20T14:24:06","date_gmt":"2020-06-20T13:24:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/?p=18686"},"modified":"2020-06-20T14:24:07","modified_gmt":"2020-06-20T13:24:07","slug":"belfast-city-blues-festival-announces-2020-festival-to-move-online-live-from-the-bunker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/2020\/06\/belfast-city-blues-festival-announces-2020-festival-to-move-online-live-from-the-bunker\/","title":{"rendered":"Belfast City Blues Festival Announces 2020 Festival To Move Online \u201cLive From The Bunker\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img src=\"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Blues-Festival-2-1024x670.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-18687\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Earlier this year the Belfast City Blues Festival 2020 was cancelled as a live event due to the Covid 19 pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, organisers have worked hard over the last month to find a way of bringing the music to the fans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Festival director Seamus O\u2019Neill said: \u201cI haven\u2019t let our music fans down yet with the festival and I\u2019m not about to start.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This year although fans won\u2019t be able to attend the live gigs they will still get their dose of music as a special online show on Saturday, June 27 from 2pm-10pm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Seamus O\u2019Neill said that the decision in April&nbsp; to postpone the 11<sup>th<\/sup> outing for the best of local, national and international musical talent had not been taken lightly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe wellbeing of our friends, fans, musicians and Blues family, alongside the amazing staff, volunteers, sponsors and festival team who support us every year was always our number one priority,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAs we consider what we can do later in the year or next year we\u2019re pleased to host this special online show live from the Blues Bunker.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Artists confirmed so far are Lee Hedley, Sam Davidson\u2019s Taste, Mirenda Rosenberg, who will stream from the US, The Johnny Max Band, streaming from Canada, The Red Hot Roosters, Dom Martin, Tony Villars and more to be announced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lee Hedley said it was important that the Belfast City Blues Festival annual celebration is acknowledged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cEach year the festival has grown and become such a vibrant part of the city\u2019s musical calendar,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m delighted that we all can play, albeit online, for fans and hopefully raise some money to make sure the festival comes back bigger and better than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Seamus said that while they are considering a scaled back festival later in the year the June 27 show will again demonstrate the commitment to the best of musical talent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cFrom an idea 11 years ago the Belfast City Blues Festival grew to such an extent that by 2019 22,500 visitors flocked to venues,\u201d he said. \u201cThe success of the festival is testimony to what we can achieve when we come together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThank you to everyone who has been part of the festival to date and I promise that in 2021 we will be back, bigger and better than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>The online show Live From The Bunker kicks off at 2pm on June 27 and will run for eight hours until 10pm.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>For more information and to book your ticket go to <\/em><\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/3hqJ3eY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong><em>https:\/\/bit.ly\/3hqJ3eY<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier this year the Belfast City Blues Festival 2020 was cancelled as a live event due to the Covid 19 pandemic. However, organisers have worked hard over the last month to find a way of bringing the music to the fans. Festival director Seamus O\u2019Neill said: \u201cI haven\u2019t let our music fans down yet with &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/2020\/06\/belfast-city-blues-festival-announces-2020-festival-to-move-online-live-from-the-bunker\/\">Continued<\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18686"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18686"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18688,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18686\/revisions\/18688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}