You can enjoy this year’s virtual Cambridge Rock Festival online from the comfort of your living room.

Let’s rock... online!

The Cambridge Rock Festival will still go ahead this month – in a virtual way.

Sadly coronavirus has put paid to promoters’ plans for this year’s 16th rock festival, and first at its new Peterborough venue.

With social distancing measures still in place, the event scheduled for the Peterborough Showground has been cancelled later this month.

However, organisers of CRF will take the annual festival online from Thursday, June 18 to Sunday, June 21.

The virtual four-day rock extravaganza will feature vintage live performances from the festival captured on video.

To give the online rock marathon an authentic CRF vibe, the high definition footage will be shown when the festival should have taken place, with changeover breaks between virtual ‘stage times’ to enable fans to buy band merchandise online from the groups’ websites.

Online festival-goers can tune in to sets from 5.30pm to 11pm on the opening Thursday, and then 11am to 11pm on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

And, just like the real thing, the virtual festival will feature a number of stages to watch – three in fact – so you won’t be able to capture all the sets.

Ian Stuart, one of the CRF organisers, said: “We will be at the Peterborough Showground from June 17 to June 20, 2021, but for now, in what we believe will be a UK if not world first, we present ‘Virtually the Cambridge Rock Festival 2020’ to run on the dates the festival would have taken place, June 18 to 21.

“What we have done is put together a full CRF line-up using all the high definition footage we have of CRF performances.

“It will only feature live CRF material, and it will run throughout the times that the festival should have taken place.”

Among the 40 plus bands and acts you can see over the weekend are Atomic Rooster, Larry Miller, Don Airey, Franck Carducci, Chris Bevington, Mostly Autumn, Son of Man with Deke Leonard, Heather Findlay, and Ben Poole.

As a thank you to loyal Cambridge rock fans, the virtual festival will also be free to watch.

A CRF spokesman said: “Yes, tickets for the four day festival are, for one year only, completely free.

“A great deal of it will be in high definition, so put the dates back on your calendar, get your beers, get settled in and in front of a big screen, ready to be at vCRF20 in spirit, if not in person.

“We hope that this will give you a taste of the unique friendly rock festival that is the Cambridge Rock Festival, and we look forward to seeing you in person in 2021!”

Full details can be found at www.cambridgerockfestival.co.uk along with further information on the festival’s plans for 2021, which will take place at Peterborough Showground on June 17-20 with acts including Focus, Cats in Space and Pendragon.

For Virtually the Cambridge Rock Festival 2020 stage line-ups, visit www.cambridgerockfestival.co.uk/2020-line-up