One of the UK’s best known bands will be appearing at this year’s Wizard Festival, the North East’s biggest two day music and arts event.
The Stranglers, who have clocked up more than 30 years as one of the UK’s most successful acts will put on the headline performance on Friday August 26 at this year’s event.

Held over two days, the dates for this year’s Wizard Festival are August 26 & 27.  Now in its fifth year, Wizard Festival is held just outside the ancient village of New Deer, in the heart of the Aberdeenshire countryside.

As one of the music industry’s most prolific bands, The Stranglers have had 24 top 40 singles and 18 top 40 albums and performed live for more than three decades.  Their appearance at Wizard is part of the band’s current promotional tour that is taking in a string European tour dates.

Known for anthems such as ‘Peaches’, ‘Golden Brown’ ‘Always The Sun’ and ‘No More Heroes’ The Stranglers head up a bill that will include more than 50 acts across three stages over two days.

Making their way to the festival for the first time the band are sure to put on a golden performance at Wizard, one of Scotland’s best boutique independent festivals.Organisers have also announced that a successful initiative launched ten years ago in Aberdeen is now taking bands on a Scottish festival tour that will include Wizard.

goNORTH works on presenting the best ‘ground breaking’ talent from the North of Scotland to the wider music industry by promoting acts and putting on showcase events, helping new acts to break into the music business.

The goNORTH 2011 Festival Tour will take in some of Scotland’s superb festivals and for the first time this will include Wizard. Eight goNORTH acts will appear on the festival’s second stage, the Banshee stage.'We are absolutely delighted to confirm the addition of Wizard to the goNORTH Festival Tour this year', said festival director for music, Shaun Arnold.  'We feel we are now in a position to offer some truly fantastic opportunities to bands throughout festival season 2011 and are genuinely thrilled with the festivals we have secured for our first Festival Tour'.

However Wizard Festival organisers will still be accepting demo submissions from local acts hoping to secure a slot on Wizard’s bill.  The demo submission process is now open and acts that want to apply should go to the festival website.

With a fresh new interactive website also being launched for 2011, Roy Thain, Wizard Festival organiser said: “We are just really excited about confirming that The Stranglers will be playing Wizard this year. This is a big year for us and we are convinced that even more fans will be joining us at Wizard this year than any other since we began.  It is always a great thrill letting our fans know what bands we have lined up for the event and this is the first announcement of many that we will be putting out in the next few months.”

Last year’s bill featured James and The Happy Mondays.  Roy said: “We knew last year would be a hard act to follow but we think we have got the mix just right this year.  As always we have tried to book acts that will have a wide appeal and that we know fans really want to see.  We will be making sure that there is something for everyone and we’re delighted that even in our fifth year we are still bringing great bands to perform in the North east of Scotland.”

Last year the event attracted 5,000 fans from across the UK and countries further afield including the U.S and Israel.  A family friendly event, Wizard hosts three stages and has a dedicated kid’s arena as well as special areas set aside for camping, caravanning and car-parking .  Hand-picked food and merchandise stalls are also on offer and there is a fully licensed bar area.