The first Felixstowe Loves Festival attracted visitors from across the UK, with Town Mayor, Corrine Franklin, saying the festival is putting “Felixstowe on the map”.

The festival included international stars and local acts, with Grammy Award winning headliner Jazzie B, frontman of Soul II Soul, playing to a packed audience alongside festival programmer DJ Ben Osborne, Daddy Turbo and chart-topping electro act Spektrum.

Funky brass band East Angles played the Triangle Stage for the VJ Day celebrations, German singer Foley Street, local soul singer MJ Soul, Colchester-based trip hop artist Sun Cutter, Lowestoft-born house music act Nathan X and Stefan, Ipswich’s Bopper Rankin and Felixstowe’s JazzVibe played the Event Space by the pier. Suffolk-based singer-songwriter Charlie Law and Felixstowe’s Write Club entertained The Alex stage, while Fresh Gold and Felixstowe Radio welcomed arrivals into the town at the train station.

The festival brought in visitors from London, Surrey, Walsall, Birmingham, Northern Ireland, Maidenhead, Worcester, Cheshire, Stratford-upon-Avon, Leicester, Whitstable, Preston, Doncaster, Yorkshire, Leicestershire – as well as Cambridge, Ely, Norwich and other places across East Anglia.

Over 22 stands offered everything from craft cookies, to original artworks, a pop-up beach side sauna, beach yoga and free skateboarding lessons.

Alice Stallard, created a wall of hearts involving over 800 artworks contributed through art workshops by nursery school children at the youngest end, to pensioner’s groups at the oldest. This was added to over the weekend. Ms Stallard says she “counted 179 new hearts to add to the wall. So that makes nearly 1000 hearts so far in total.” Local youth group, Level 2, painted stones with over 200 young people in one day. Visitors made 98 screen-printed festival t-shirts and tote bags,

A community Heart Art Trail was launched as part of the festival involving 28 community groups and businesses. The trail will continue for a month, encouraging visitors and trail followers to venture to different places across the town.

Town Mayor Corrine Franklin thanked Felixstowe BID and Noise of Art for organising the festival for the town. The Mayor said the event was bringing new art, experiences, music and visitors into the town: “It’s so exciting to see what we can do in Felixstowe and how important the town and the sea front is to our community.”

The Next Felixstowe Loves event takes place at Beach Side Event Space and other venues on Saturday 6 and Sunday 7 September with Aswad Headlining.