Stendhal 2019 dates confirmed after festival numbers soared this summer

The family-friendly festival will take place over three days on August 15, 16 and 17, 2019 at Ballymully Cottage Farm.

The event will once again be a three-day affair, with the addition of an extra night having been so warmly received this year and the organisers are already looking forward to trying to top what they have hailed as their best year yet.

“For us 2018 was incredible,” said event director, Ross Parkhill.

“We had approximately 8,500 people on site, up approximately 2,000 on 2017, which made the event last summer the largest independent music and arts festival of its kind in the history of Northern Ireland, and that just blows my mind.

“Every year it is getting harder and harder to top previous events but judging from the feedback we have received it appears that we have managed to do so again, which means we have quite the job on for 2019.”

Ross says the team is already in the early planning stages for the ninth instalment of Stendhal and that he hopes that next year will be a case of solidifying as much as growing the event.

“At this stage we are aiming more towards solidifying the event and tweaking bits and pieces than we are for massive growth,” he said.

“If we can manage to get 9,000 on site next year, we’d be more than happy with that and then we’d look towards breaking the 10,000 mark for our 10th anniversary in 2020.

“That said, I do think that we would be more than capable of managing a crowd of 10,000 next year if things went really well.”

Ross said: “It’s a crazy amount of work that goes into just one weekend in August but we love every minute of it and continue to be incredibly grateful and humbled by all the love and support we receive from everyone.”

A limited number of Early Bird tickets are available: www.StendhalFestival.com.