The inaugural two day Knowsley Hall Music Festival will take place this June with headliners The Who and Keane. The Who will headline on Saturday, 23 June with Keane headlining the second day on Sunday, 24 June. Other confirmed acts include The Coral, The Zutons, The View, and Pete Wylie. The festival has been developed by Cream, the organisers of Creamfields held in nearby Daresbury, and production team Rockness. Cream's Chief Executive James Barton has been speaking to the BBC about his hopes for the event. Do you plan for the Knowsley festival to become an annual event?“I really hope it is, and I think it will completely depend on how this year’s show goes. If it goes well financially we’ll do it again, and if it goes well organisational wise we’ll do it again. “But it’s not even been a week since the show went on sale (18th February) and it’s just under 20,000 tickets already sold, it’s a phenomenal response. I’ve never had a show that’s gone so quick out the box office as this show. And there’s only a handful of bands already announced and there’s a lot more to come. So, fingers crossed I think. “It’s always difficult because you just never really know how people will take to these things until you do them. You sit in your office in your little darkened room plotting and scheming and booking bands and thinking about how you should present it, and you just don’t know until you go out there.  | | The Who will play on Saturday, 23 June |
“With this show though I did sort of sound out a couple of Liverpool’s more influential music people, the likes of Pete Wylie and Phil Hayes and just sort of gauge the temperature and see whether this was something they thought Liverpool needed. “During the eighties I was in to guitar bands, and I still am. I don’t buy a lot of dance music, I love dance music, and I dance to dance music, but if I’m in the car or if I’m at home I want to listen to Echo and the Bunnymen, I want to listen to The View, Kasabian, The Killers. “So that for me is sort of where I come from. Because we’re sort of dance promoters it was always a difficult one to work out how people would respond. But the response has been amazing.” Why did you choose Knowsley?“When you sit down and you try to think about these things and you think ‘What’s missing in the market?’ What’s the gap? What do people really want?’  | | Cream already run the Creamfields festival |
“A festival in the true sense of the word for me brings back memories of when the original festivals began with the Isle of Wight Festival and Glastonbury. Then I spent some time in San Francisco and had the opportunity to go to Bill Graham’s offices, who is like the original promoter. “There’s been a lot of new music festivals created recently which for me have been a bit too slick, and have been a little bit about telecommunication sponsors, or they’ve just been a little bit too tricky. “I thought for me, I think about Knebworth and Slane Castle and those sort of places from the 1980’s with the likes of U2 or Springsteen. “That’s what I wanted to try and help recreate. I think Knowsley delivers that in as much as the backdrop is the house. The grounds are beautiful, there’s 3000 acres there.  | | The Zutons will play the festival |
“It would have been quite easy for us to have put this in a football stadium or something, but actually it just wouldn’t have any character if we put it there. It would be nice if Liverpool had a venue that could host this. “There’s no way that any other promoter in the country will sell as many tickets for The Who than we will. I’m absolutely certain of that.” Which other bands are you hoping to line up?“My all time favourite Liverpool band is Echo and the Bunnymen but unfortunately I can’t convince Ian McCulloch to do the show right now. “I think it is really important that we’re going to create a second stage and I know I’m going to get sent millions of demo cd’s now, but there is going to be a second stage which is going to be primarily for new emerging music. The likes of the Little Flames, the likes of Candy Pain, the likes of The Maybes. “There’s so many great new bands we can’t create a slot for everybody.” | 
