Preview: Alfresco Festival w/ Mr. Scruff

Blackpool's Family friendly festival gears up for another year of fantastic kids entertainment as well as a top drawer music lineup, ensuring that there is something for all the family.

Mike Warburton

Date published: 10th May 2013

Photograph: Mr. Scruff

Surely one of the Family Festival highlights in the North West is Blackpool’s very own Alfresco Festival - a one day spectacular that caters for every member of the family.

With kids being well looked after with a tonne of art and craft classes, amazing toddlers areas full of toys, games, activities and storytelling, you can be sure that the younger ones in your family are going to find it really hard to get bored.

With children being fully supervised all day as well, parents are free to roam around, letting their hair down, knowing that their offspring are being well looked after and having a good time.

Alfresco boasts a Pizza Bus, a food court area that serves noodles, steak sandwiches, and occasionally a hog roast too. Obviously, the onsite bar has a great selection of drinks including award winning real ale, so all bases are covered. There are even a number of artists on the day that come from far and wide to run workshops.

Alfresco combines all this with a fantastic lineup of artists, which this year include Manchester lad Mr. Scruff. One of the most well loved DJs in the dance music scene with releases on huge labels like Ninja Tune, his massively varied sets often combine Electronica, House, Downtempo, Instrumental Hip Hop, Breakbeat, Trip hop, and Nu-jazz into one cohesive masterclass, he is a DJ you have to see to believe.

He will be joined by Grand Central Records favourite Aim. The Barrow in Furness born Hip Hop instrumentalist is a true champion of the downtempo scene in Britain, and his teaming up with Niko is going to be something unmissable.
He will be joined by Government, Galaxians, and Martin Brew.

With the recent addition of an Alfresco After Party, the adults will have their time to have fun, once the kids are in bed of course. The Cricket Club will open its doors back up soon after 9pm, and will stay open til 3am, featuring DJs from the Tha Gods, Cowbell Radio, Chris Duckenfield, 2 Billion Beats, plus deep tech-soul maestro Flash Atkins, who has worked with everyone from 70’s crooner Caspa Codina, to disco Diva Kathy Diamond, Leilani, Crazy P’s Danielle Moore and Los Angeles based rapper Sean Reveron.