Rock and Bowl bosses delighted by festival success

Organisers of a Market Drayton music festival have said this year's event was the best yet as audience numbers doubled.

Nearly 3,000 people visited the Rock and Bowl festival over the bank holiday weekend, despite torrential rain, a charge for tickets for the first time and jubilee celebrations across the county. It was the fourth year the two day-event, which featured 15 local bands, has taken place.

It also include a one-off Diamond Jubilee concert night with a Queen tribute band.

Last year about 1,400 people went to Rock and Bowl when organiser's asked for a small donation.

Now it has been moved from the Coach and Horses pub to the picnic area by the town swimming pool and tickets were up to £9 per day. Landlord of the Coach and Horses Laurence Payne said it was better than he could have hoped for.

He said: "It went fantastic really, it was beyond our expectations for this year.

"We had better figures than when we weren't charging, about 2,500 to 3,000 people came along over the three days.

"I would like to think it has gone forward a step. We want to establish it as an annual event. I'd like to be able to repeat what we have done but we need to speak to local residents and the council about the site."

One idea is that the festival would be moved to Fordhall Farm, near the Muller factory." Mr Payne said that would see shuttle buses put on for people to get there.

He said he was concerned that the site might be too big for the size of the concert and decisions would have to be made.

"In terms of logistics there were problems; we had an articulated lorry planted in the field just before beer barrels turned up and one night the roof came off the beer tent," Mr Payne added.

"But local people saw us struggling to cope at times and they put themselves up to help us out.

"People were positive and happy, even the day it rained we had 100 people buy tickets on the door. They seemed to be having a ball even though it was awful weather."