Seven years old, Lovebox has become a must do event on the bristling summer social calender.
Held annually on London's oldest public park bordering Bethnal Green, Hackney, and Bow, London's most creative and socially dynamic quarters, Lovebox as a festival, urban event or "happening" is without comparison.
“You can’t beat London as the hippest place on the planet, the Lovebox Weekender is proof of that” Gilles Peterson
Music has always been at the heart of Lovebox; with all the rock & roll chaos and glamour of supercharged sets, epic performances with dramatic backdrops, and chuggy jams under the trees from bands and DJs spanning the genres.
The first show saw Groove Armada, The Blackbyrds, Norman Jay and Richie Havens play the same live stage while Mr Scruff, Joey Negro, Gilles Peterson and Movement amongst others fired up 3 different dance music arenas.
Since then we've more than tripled in attendance and in the size of the site. Now, with such a big space to play means we expect 50,000 people in July . The best bit about this is that we can now not only programme three times more music, but we can programme across more styles and genres in what gets booked while digging deeper to find some amazing rising talent. The result is that anyone coming to Lovebox can traverse their way across an incredible musical landscape hand picked by a bunch of real fanatics turning each other on to new and old bands, DJs and musical styles, be it folk, hip hop, indie, disco-punk, rock, world or electronic music. It's very much a case of the whole being "greater than the sum of the parts.
Set and setting also play a big part in what we do; our basic principle here is to create a space to enjoy the music to enhance mood, provoke thought and challenge expectations. Being in the capital city we've a lot to compete with and a standard to live up to, so the levels we set ourselves are already high.
“Festivals don’t come much better” Time Out London
Places to sit, delicious food, cold beer, fast service, enough loos are all basic rights in a big city, so while we strive for the best here we also aim to take the customer out of the city for a while and into something more fantastic, with great care and love lavished on making the beautiful park look even more beautiful and with bespoke built venues and arenas.
"In the hidden corners of Lovebox it still felt like you were part of something deafening, furtive and special" The Observer - July 2008
"Winner - Best Medium Sized Festival" UK Festival Awards 2008
"Winner - Party People Award for Dance Music" UK Festival Awards 2006