Local musicians will still get the chance to perform this week as Access Creative College broadcasts a virtual Latitude Festival Inbetweeners Stage via Twitch.

Norwich Evening News: Access Creative College working on the Inbetweeners Stage at Latitude Festival. Picture: Geena Sharma SinghAccess Creative College working on the Inbetweeners Stage at Latitude Festival. Picture: Geena Sharma Singh (Image: Geena Sharma Singh)

As the country took the hit from COVID-19, all UK festivals, concerts and venues have been cancelled/closed this summer which has had a huge impact on the entertainment industry as a whole.

Locally, this has meant music fans will no longer be flocking to Henham Park in Suffolk this year to enjoy the ever popular Latitude Festival which has seen many local bands and singers take to the stage to showcase their talent.

Access Creative College (ACC), a national music college with a centre based on Magdalen Street in Norwich, usually run stages at a number of local music events including the Inbetweeners Stage at Latitude Festival.

This stage has been running for the past 10 years, to enable students to have the opportunity to perform, tech and stage manage, and has hosted the likes of Mullally, Bessie Turner, Let’s Eat Grandma and Ed Sheeran - all of whom are students/former students of the college.

Norwich Evening News: Access Creative College working on the Inbetweeners Stage at Latitude Festival. Picture: Geena Sharma SinghAccess Creative College working on the Inbetweeners Stage at Latitude Festival. Picture: Geena Sharma Singh (Image: Geena Sharma Singh)

In a bid to stop students from missing out this year, ACC, with support from Latitude Festival, will be running their Inbetweeners Stage virtually with opportunities for a selection of their Music Performance and Artist Development students to still showcase their talents.

“Industry experiences are at the heart of what we do at ACC and are central to the ethos of our courses,” explains ACC Centre Manager, Dan Foden.

“We have excellent industry links, but COVID has created some challenges in the sector. Our Music Performance, Event Production and Studio & Live Sound students have adapted well to the changes and have become quite adept at online content, recording and socially distanced performance broadcasts through the opportunities we have given them so far. Latitude Festival is so important to us and our students, so we didn’t want them to miss out completely this year.”

The event will be presented by successful YouTuber and ACC Norwich tutor Helen Anderson, who has 303K Instagram followers and 595K YouTube subscribers, and will be streamed over the Latitude weekend (16th-19th July 2020).

Performances can be expected from students such as Vapour and Grace Stewart and ACC alumni such as Lucy Grubb and Coll. The performances will take place on Thursday July 16 at 5pm on the Access Creative College Twitch channel.

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