THE arrival of a press release from the Northumberland National Park, on how businesses up there are being encouraged to cash in on Kielder’s Dark Sky designation, set The Band Room promoter Nigel Burnham thinking.

"Could we reasonably claim to be England’s best Dark Sky music venue?" he ponders, looking out from the moorland wood and tin shed at Low Mill, Farndale, near Kirkbymoorside, that first served as a silver band rehearsal room.

"In connection with this potential new status, I’m asking people to bring their binoculars to our Tiny Ruins gig on September 5 because it coincides with this year’s Harvest Moon."

Kielder's Dark Sky designation refers to the Border county being named as home to the largest area of protected night sky in Europe. The International Dark Skies Association (IDA), based in Tucson, Arizona, has granted Gold Tier Dark Sky Park status to the Northumberland National Park and Kielder Water & Forest Park, covering nearly 1,500 square kilometres between Hadrian's Wall and the Scottish border.

The new zone, officially called the Northumberland International Dark Sky Park, is the first of its kind in England and one of the largest in the world, joining the likes of Death Valley and Big Bend Dark Sky Parks in the United States. A. Gold Tier designation is the highest accolade the IDA can bestow.

What prompted Nigel's thoughts about the Band Room and dark skies? "Astronomy has always been a bit of a leitmotif for me here, at both The Band Room and at home in East Farndale," he says. "On the night of the first ever concert – the legendary Cajun band Balfa Toujours in August 1995 – there was a full moon, and it was so hot and sticky, very Mardi Gras and swampy, you could almost have been in New Orleans.

"Since then I’ve lost count of the number of times people have exited the venue and looked upwards in amazement at the black velvet skies crackling with billions of stars."

Nigel has seen two moonbows in Farndale too.

"They're very rare night-time white-ish rainbows, which only happen if there’s a full moon at one side of the sky and rain in the middle," he says. "I once wrote to Patrick Moore about moonbows and in a little jewel of a reply he told me there were ‘extremely rare and beautiful visual phemonena' – and that he had only seen two during his lifetime, once over Selsey Bill when he was returning from France during World War Two."

Thinking aloud, Nigel adds: "I don’t think there’s any need to apply for official Dark Sky designation, even if one could. I guess it would have to be the North York Moors National Park, wouldn’t it?. I mean, if there’s a better Dark Sky venue anywhere in England, I’d like to know what it is!"

In the meantime, on a more practical note, tickets for Tiny Ruins are on sale at thebandroom.co.uk/tickets and on 01751 432900. Tiny Ruins, by the way, is New Zealander Hollie Fullbrook. "Gorgeous voice, crisp finger-picker, Hollie has spent the last three years touring the world opening for Beach House, Joanna Newsom, Fleet Foxes, The Handsome Family, Calexico and, in April and May, for Crowded House's Neil Finn, with whom she also played," says Nigel.

"Her classy new album, Brightly Painted One on the Bella Union label, takes in folk, blues and pop, revealing similarities to Laura Marling, Karen Dalton and Sandy Denny, and heralds – oh come on, let's get down off of the fence – the arrival of a bona-fide genius."

Such an accolade must make Tiny Ruins another star to add to Nigel's dark sky.