New Country Festival Announced With Headliner Lauren Alaina

Dixie Fields, Essex’s first country music festival, announces ACM New Female Vocalist of the Year Lauren Alaina as its headliner.

The boutique country music festival will take place on the weekend of 12-14 July on farmland bordering Hylands Park. Dixie Fields will feature a Friday evening outdoor cinema and campsite acoustic session, a full country music lineup on the Saturday, and a big American style brunch on the Sunday morning for campers.

Set in beautiful farmland bordering Hylands Park, the festival will bring the fastest growing genre of music to the people of Essex. Encompassing the best in local talent as well as international stars, the first running of this brand-new festival will offer family friendly entertainment and live music.

Making her first visit to Essex, Georgia native Lauren Alaina captured America’s hearts when she competed on Season 10 of American Idol. In 2017, Lauren followed up her No. 1 debuting first album, Wildflower, with the release of the critically-acclaimed Road Less Traveled. The album landed on multiple end-of-year “Best Of” lists including Billboard, Rolling Stone and Amazon, and it became the top-streamed female country album release of the year. Praised as “full of life lessons and uplift” (PEOPLE), the collection of 12 songs all written by the young star includes Lauren’s first No. 1 hit, title track “Road Less Traveled."

Lauren will be joined at Dixie Fields by a number of other acts including local band Holloway Road. Jack Cooper & Rob Gulston from Southend are one of the most exciting new duos in country-pop music with over half a million streams for their music to date. With growing support from fans worldwide and three iTunes Top Five EPs to date, success in a growing international country scene increasingly looks like an inevitable part of the Holloway Road story. Late in 2017 the duo completed their first full band headline tour and during the summer of 2018 they returned to Nashville to write for their third EP ‘Broke’, with a huge response from fans and over 100k streams within the first few weeks of release.

Other acts and entertainment include The Jackson Line (Chelmsford), Megan O’Neill (London based), acoustic sets, campfires, country karaoke and fantastic American food.

Georgie Thorogood, Operations Director for Dixie Fields says “We are so excited to be bringing this event to Essex. I’ve been a huge fan of country music for many years, spending hours listening to Dolly Parton and the Dixie Chicks and I’m delighted that it is experiencing a huge surge in popularity in the UK at the

moment and there is massive demand for the type of wholesome, genuinely good fun times that come with this type of music – think marshmallows and songs around the campfire – and this is what we will be offering at Dixie Fields! Some of the best-known pop artists have made country records over the past year or so which have been in the charts (Justin Timberlake, Kylie Minogue, Bebe Rexhe, Miley Cyrus) and of course the likes of Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood have their roots firmly set in the country scene too. Essex has an amazing pool of talent in country music and we can’t wait to showcase some of the local stars alongside the international talent as well!”

The main day of the festival will be Saturday 13th July with camping available on both the Friday and Saturday nights with additional entertainment for camping ticket holders and many more artists yet to be announced!

Tickets are on sale now for Dixie Fields festival from www.dixiefields.com