Rocking out for charity at the Deanstock Music Festival 2017

An epic one day music festival that brings together the best of local music talent returns to Lisburn this Saturday and all proceeds will be donated to charity.
Organiser Dean Smith (right) is bringing together great musicians and friends for the third Deanstock Festival.Organiser Dean Smith (right) is bringing together great musicians and friends for the third Deanstock Festival.
Organiser Dean Smith (right) is bringing together great musicians and friends for the third Deanstock Festival.

Deanstock returns for its third year and what started out as some music and a BBQ at organiser Dean Sinclair’s house, has grown into one of the biggest local music events.

The ticket only event showcases some of the great musical talent that Northern Ireland has to offer, begins this Saturday (June 10) from 12.30pm in Alexander’s Lounge, Lisburn.

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A 12 hour day of superb local music will be offer with six bands and three acoustic sets all signed up.

Lisburn man Dean, of Music NI, told the Star that this is set to is set to be the biggest and most important yet with all proceeds raised from Deanstock going towards charity cancer Macmillan.

He said: “This great music mixed with raising money for a fantastic cause makes all the planning of the event worthwhile, not to mention the smiles on people’s faces from start to finish and the demand to have another Deanstock year after year.

“I do it on the back of raising money for people affected by this terrible illness and my passion for music.

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“I go to a lot of music events and Deanstock is totally different as it is about music, people, friendships and most importantly raising money for MacMillan.”

Throughout the year I have nights at my house where I have different groups of friends around and put on a band or acoustic set then DJ myself to the early hours. This way they build up the friendships and then all those groups and people get together on the day of Deanstock and get to catch up.

Dean told the Star that he decided to support the charity after his close friend lost their battle with cancer last year.

He said: “I looked at my circle of friends and most them, all music lovers also had someone related to them affected by Cancer, so I got to thinking and thought if I could mix both the music yet help raise money for this terrible illness.”

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“Last year I raised £520 and I thought imagine if I could double that, but this year already I have raised £1,910 as I made the entrance fee to the gig the donation to Macmillan Cancer Support.

“Then last October I lost a good friend to Cancer and after seeing what him and his family went through it really sealed the deal that holding Deanstock every year was a great idea and would help somebody somewhere that needs it.

Deanstock really has to be experienced to be believed. For more information visit https://www.musicni.co.uk/deanstock.