Photo special: Big screen Glastonbury Festival event draws crowds to city centre

It may not have been Worthy Farm but Peterborough did a mighty fine job of bringing the world’s greatest festival to the city centre over the weekend.

Hundreds of people – some of whom had travelled from afar – descended upon the green space behind St John’s Church to watch live coverage of the Glastonbury Festival on a specially erected giant screen.

In addition to the big screen performances, music fans also soaked up live music from the nearby Queen’s Head pub, and tucked into grilled festival faves courtesy of a barbecue hosted at Turtle Bay Caribbean Restaurant.

Face-painting and street food vendors were also on hand to help promote the festive atmosphere further.

"For a brief, shining moment, it felt like you weren’t in Peterborough – it felt like you were somewhere different with a festival vibe,” Said Pep Cipriano, Chief Operating Officer at Peterborough Positive, the city centre's Business Improvement District (BID).

Pep explained that the idea behind the big screen event was to encourage more people to come and spend time in the city centre, and to help increase footfall to business in the area.

"For all those touch points, it was an absolute success,” Pep said.

As well as those local to Peterborough, Pep was thrilled to see people from further afield coming along to spend the day in the city.

“That was powerful and moving for me; to see families from outside of the city coming here especially for this.”

Along with the great tunes, tasty food and laid-back vibe, prolonged bouts of fine weather helped ensure all those attending enjoyed themselves.

Pep was keen to share some of the positive feedback the event received:

“‘Wow! We’ve never seen this before in Peterborough!’ – that was one of the comments that [we] came across a few times, and there was lots of ‘Can you do this again next year?’”

Well, can they?

“Absolutely!” Pep replied immediately.

Check out our fab gallery to see Peterborough’s homage to Glasto for yourself!