Over 14 hours of live brass band contest broadcasting will be aired this weekend when the Bolsover Festival of Brass takes place at the Heritage High School in Clowne on Sunday 2nd October.

Live broadcast

Following the success of the 2015 event, which attracted viewers from over 30 countries, the 20 minute entertainment sets of bands in the Championship and First Section will be broadcast live around the world, with all performances from the Second, Third, Fourth and Unregistered Sections recorded for future broadcast.

There has been a huge amount of interest in this year's events — with extensive local and regional media coverage already highlighting the innovative approach of a contest that will see 47 entertainment programmes delivered by the competing bands.

Fringe Festival

In addition, a series of 'Fringe Festival' events in partnership with the First Art organisation will be taking place in a number of local locations, such as the Diamond Centre in Kirkby in Ashfield and Shirland Miners Welfare in north east Derbyshire — enabling supporters and brass band lovers to link into the broadcasts from the comfort of community venues.

A spokesperson for the Diamond Centre told 4BR: "We are delighted to become part of the Festival of Brass Fringe Festival and everyone is welcome to come along to us, free of charge and enjoy the action.

A breakfast club will be served till 11.00 am and a special super kitchen served from 11.30am -2.30pm (3 course meal only £2.99). Places for super kitchen are limited so book now to avoid disappointment. All this lots of other food and drink will be available throughout the day."

Social media response

The first band will take to the stage at 9.00am and this year that innovative approach will hopefully see more and more people become involved through social media.

The event will have a special social media co-coordinator on hand throughout the day who will ensure that if you get in touch through Twitter or Facebook etc, your comments and best wishes will appear on screen!

This year family and friends, supporters, players, conductors and even rival bands can directly involved by interacting on Twitter @FirstArtProject using the dedicated hash tag #festofbrass

We are delighted to become part of the Festival of Brass Fringe Festival and everyone is welcome to come along to us, free of charge and enjoy the actionDiamond Centre in Kirkby in Ashfield

Tweets

The tweets will become part of the event by appearing along the bottom of the big screen sharing your well wishes with the world.

Further details of the contest day and how you can be involved will be released this week in the run-up to the contest on Sunday 2nd October.