Beating a path to Cropredy

The popular festival, organised by folk rockers Fairport Convention, is now in its 31st year after starting out as a fundraiser for a village hall.

It now runs over four days from Thursday to Sunday and attracts thousands of people to the village just north of Banbury.

This year among the biggest acts at the festival will be much-loved brummie jammers UB40 who appear on the opening night.

Friday night will see international country blues star Seasick Steve, and indie rockers The Coral take to the stage, while the festival will be rounded off on Saturday night by Badly Drawn Boy and the Fairport Convention themselves.

Other names you may know that will be appearing include the Blockheads, Lau, and rising star Blair Dunlop.

Fairport’s lead singer and festival co-organiser Simon Nicol said: “It’s all tickety boo at the moment. Everybody is really gung-ho and looking forward to it.

“Everybody has a great time there. As a band we get such a huge charge of energy from it and we all get set up for the next 12 months basically.

“Living up to last year is going to be difficult even though the weather wasn’t great. I’m very happy with the bill. Cropredy doesn’t have an obvious musical agenda, we just present music that we admire and it covers everything.”

The festival kicks off on Thursday August, with tickets still available.

Festival organisers are warning people that late-running engineering work could cause some disruption on the roads.

They have announced a traffic management plan to minimise disruption, with the section of road between Williamscot and Junction 11 of the M40 set to be closed.

Festival director Gareth Williams said: “The festival will go ahead as usual but people should allow more time for their journey.

“Most of our festival-goers arrive during Thursday morning, so that’s when possible delays are most likely. We’re asking everyone to stick to A roads rather than clog up country lanes and to avoid looking for rat runs through the neighbouring villages.”

For the full line-up, tickets and more information go online.