LOCKDOWN may have robbed music lovers of the chance to head out to gigs but a three-day Bank Holiday music festival featuring a host of East Lancashire musicians starts today.

A few weeks ago, a two-day Lockdown Festival was streamed live and raised more than £4,000 for NHS charities.

Inspired by that, organiser Dom O’Doherty has put together a festival bill featuring 38 different performers who will play live from their own homes and studios with the performances being stream live on Facebook.

“We really weren’t sure what the response would be to the Lockdown Festival,” said Dom. “We didn’t know if anyone would even stream it. But it was fantastic. We had around 80,000 streams over the two days. It’s not easy to work out numbers but on average we had around 500 people watching the artists at any one time.”

Now Dom has set his sights higher with three days of live music.

“The bank holiday is normally a time when music lovers get out to see live music - this weekend should have been Darwen Live - so it just seemed right to get something sorted.”

A number of the artists who appeared at the first Lockdown even will be returning but the line up includes a host of new acts.

“My inbox was full with artists who had seen what we’d done asking if they could take part in the next Lockdown event,” said Dom.

“Around 15 of the performers are from East Lancashire but we’ve got them from all over the country too.”

Dom’s even lined up a performance live from Brazil by musician Joao Terra.

“I’ve been looking at artists who have been streaming live performances and he caught my eye,” said Dom. “I got in touch and he agreed to take part which will be a bit different.

“Hopefully there will be something for everyone.”

Anyone taking the live screen can choose to make a donation either to the NHS or to the Save Our Venues campaign which is looking to protect music venues threatened by the current pandemic.

“I will be choosing a local music venue the proceeds will go to,” said Dom. “But the main aim is really to give music fans something over the bank holiday to look forward to.”

The Lockdown Festival runs from 2.20pm today, 1pm tomorrow and 1.40pm on Sunday. Search for Lockdown Festival on Facebook to see the full line-up, performance times and to access the live stream.