Sound City heralds new era for live music in Ipswich
Georgie sings at St Stephens Church for the Sound City music festival in Ipswich - Credit: DENISE BRADLEY/Archant2021
More than 2,000 music fans supported the Sound City Ipswich festival in the town this weekend - and venues created especially for the event are now set to be retained for future gigs.
Organisers of the music event, which ran on Friday and Saturday, oversaw the transformation of two iconic venues - the Baths Hall in in Civic Drive and St Stephen's Church - to create enough performance space for the festival.
It is now hoped both will be used again in the near future, signalling a fresh start for live music in Ipswich.
Bands also played at the Corn Exchange, on a free public stage on the Corn Hill and at the Smokehouse in South Street as part of the two-day festival.
Led Zeppelin famously played at St Matthew's Baths Hall in the 1970s and programmer and co-director Marcus Neal thinks that following the restoration for Sound City, Ipswich can attract that calibre of artist once more.
Mr Neal said: "We needed bigger spaces. We were trying with this event and we hope we can bring artists here in the future.
"It's been overwhelmingly brilliant and the feedback from attendees has been absolutely amazing.
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"We hope to make the town become a bit more vibrant."
He also thanked the Ipswich Star, Sound + City, BBC Introducing, Ipswich Borough Council, the Arts Council, Adnams and Keychange for their help with the event.
Mr Neal added: "We couldn't have done it without volunteers."