AS the man behind the Highest Point Festival which begins tomorrow in Lancaster, Jamie Scahill appears remarkably relaxed.

The new three-day event in Williamson Park brings together top rock acts such as Ocean Colour Scene, Cast and Embrace; leading DJs including Sasha, Greg Wilson and K Klass, art installations and family activities - all rounded off by Hacienda Classical on Sunday night.

“The stress levels are rising a little bit but this is actually the enjoyable period for us,” said Jamie. “We’ve been working on this for over 12 months now so it’s good to see it all come to a head.”

Only a limited number of tickets remain for the event which Jamie is delighted about.

“Until the tills are ringing for the tickets you don’t know if you’ve got it right or wrong so that’s all good really and now we’re looking forward to a great weekend,” he said.

Event director Jamie and the team behind the festival gained valuable experience by staging the successful dance night A Wing within the walls of the former Lancaster Prison.

“After A Wing, we had booked Hacienda Classical for a show which was going to be held in the castle grounds but that changed and we needed a venue,” said Jamie.

“We knew about Williamson Park and it grew from there.

“We didn’t think we would be allowed to run a gig there but we got great support from the council and we were able to have a great show with over three-and-a-half thousand people down there.”

The idea for a festival grew out of the success of that event after the council asked Jamie and his team to come up with another idea for Williamson Park.

“Somehow it changed to a three-day event.” said Jamie. “I’m not sure what happened to the idea of two days!

“Actually it comes down to the production costs; once you’ve set it up you might as well do something so we decided on three days.

“All of us have been involved in other festivals around the country so we did know what to expect but there are specific challenges with a festival in a park that size.”

Highest Point will mean that the park is closed to non ticket holders for three nights so Jamie and the team wanted to do something to give something back to the people of Lancaster.

“That’s where the idea of a family fringe festival during the day came from,” said Jamie.

A whole host of events from 9am to 3pm on Saturday and Sunday have been lined up, co-ordinated by Deco Publique, the company behind last weekend’s Festival of Making in Blackburn.

“We’ve got all sorts of surprises and we will be celebrating the Royal Wedding in style,” said Jamie.

The festival will also remember one of the driving forces behind those initial A Wing events, Chris Glaba, who died of cancer aged 27 in 2016.

A stage at the festival has been named in his memory and one pound from every ticket sold will be donated to Macmillan Cancer Support.

“Without Chris we wouldn’t be doing this festival,” said Jamie.

And he revealed that he hoped Highest Point would become an annual event.

“This is not just a one-off,” he said. “We want to create a legacy festival to put Lancaster even more on the map.”

Highest Point Festival, Williamson Park, Lancaster, Friday, May 18 to Sunday, May 20. Details from highestpoint.co.uk