Dundee’s Camperdown Park should have been swamped with tens of thousands of music lovers this weekend in one of the biggest events to come to the city in years.
Instead, Radio 1’s Big Weekend event, originally to feature top artists such as Harry Styles and Calvin Harris, as well as Dua Lipa and Camila Cabello, will be held online.
The new cast of over 100 musicians to beam out performances from their own homes includes Sam Smith, Jonas Brothers, Anne-Marie, Young T & Bugsey and Rita Ora.
Biffy Clyro, who were in the initial line-up, will also perform, as will dance music favourites such as Armand Van Helden, Disclosure, Bicep, Fatboy Slim and Eats Everything.
The festival is going ahead at the same time it was originally planned, starting on Friday and finishing on Sunday.
BBC Radio 1 announced the news in mid-March as the coronavirus pandemic began to take hold in the country and just days before a UK-wide lockdown was announced.
The event would have seen an estimated 70,000 people pack out Dundee’s biggest park, including some from outside Tayside, injecting hundreds of thousands of pounds into the local economy.
It is understood BBC bosses and council chiefs are engaged in discussions on whether the festival could be held next year in Dundee.
The flagship BBC music extravaganza was set to return to the city 14 years after it last took place.
The 2006 event drew huge crowds as Snow Patrol, Muse, Keane, Pink, Sugababes and Razorlight starred.
The Big Weekend moves to different venues each year and Dundee would have been the first Scottish city to host it for a second time.
Tickets for the festival, which always takes place in the last weekend in May, are allocated through an online lottery.
Last year’s Radio One Big Weekend took place in Middlesbrough, headlined by Mark Ronson, Miley Cyrus and The 1975.
To find out artists’ ‘stage’ timings this year, visit the BBC Radio 1 website.
