YORK'S Little Festival of Live Music will return from September 23 to October 1, fresh from the free-entry event garnering acclaim in the Yorkshire Gig Guide Awards.

The public vote has placed the Little Festival in the top five in three categories: Outstanding New Festival of the Year, Outstanding Contribution to the Community of the Year and Outstanding Promotion of the Year.

"The festival is now in with a chance of winning one of the prestigious awards at the ceremony in West Yorkshire in early October," says director Ellen Cole. "We were over the moon when we heard that we'd been nominated in three categories; we did a fair bit of promotional activity to encourage the public to vote for us, but we never thought we would make it into the top five in all three.

"I still have butterflies thinking about it, and my good friends Vesper Walk and Kymberley Kennedy have made it into the top five in their categories too, which is the icing on the cake, and I'm really looking forward to supporting both acts. Regardless of the outcome, I'm sure we'll all have a lovely night out together and enjoy meeting more like-minded music industry professionals from across Yorkshire.”

York’s Little Festival of Live Music 2016 will run alongside the York Food and Drink Festival in the Music Marquee, in Parliament Street, where 30 acts will play over the eight days, among them Boss Caine, The Blueprints and festival veterans Surf Sluts, who will be disbanding after their performance.

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Joshua Burnell

In response to public demand, the festival has added extra bands and musicians to the line-up, which means the event now has 30 hours of free-entry live music. Surf rock band Atomic Raygun, prog-rock folk musician Joshua Burnell, funky hip-hop blues performer Vinnie Whitehead and East Riding folk singer Edwina Hayes, who has supported Jools Holland on tour, have joined the line-up.

Taking part too will be Leeds College of Music student Ingrid Schwarts; Newcastle acoustic-folk performer Savannah Betts; Manchester’s own Dave Gorman (not the comedian of the same name); West Yorkshire’s orchestral folk-pop band Dear Friends; Yorkshire coast singer-songwriter Gracie Falls and five-piece folk extravaganza Ramble Gamble, from North Lincolnshire.

Other acts include acoustic-folk musician David Ward Maclean; Dan Webster; the Duncan Macfarlane Band; York bluegrass combo Courgette; country duo Mulholland; Leather’o; eight-piece theatrical band Vesper Walk; Everlate and Flora Greysteel. The list goes on: The Bronze; Kitty VR; Jess Gardham; Laura Kindelan; Ava Rose and Charlie Daykin from Barcode Zebra; The YORKshire Puddingz and Kymberley Kennedy will be there too.

“We're thrilled that audiences wanted more live music from us this year. If it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t be coming back year after year," says Ellen. "We're delighted with the additional line-up; we know they'll all add something special and are all different from one another, meaning that our audiences can enjoy a broad range of music and all free of charge."

The music will start each day at 5pm and will end at approximately 9pm. For more information, visit yorkfoodfestival.com; go to www.facebook.com/YorksLittleFestivalOfLiveMusic or follow @Live_Music_Fest on Twitter.