CarFest Revs Up for 2016
It is hard to believe that we are here again so soon, but the final tickets for this summer's CarFest family festivals will go on sale during Chris Evans' Radio 2 Breakfast Show at 8am on Thursday 28 April.
Now entering its fifth successful season, CarFest continues to go from strength-to-strength, and 2016's pair of magical feasts of cars, music, food and fun will be even bigger and better than ever before with lots of exciting new innovations and attractions. 
Most notably, while CarFest South (26th-28th August) remains at its spiritual home - Jody Scheckter's award-winning Laverstoke Park Farm in Hampshire - an expanded CarFest North (29th-31st July) is moving to a new residency at the beautiful Bolesworth Castle in Cheshire.
As well as providing more than a third of a million festival goers with magical weekends of wonderful entertainment for all ages, the eight sell-out festivals staged to date have raised a whopping £6.7m for BBC Children in Need. And once again in 2016 a minimum of 25 per cent of the price of each ticket sold will go directly to the charity.
The first tranche of tickets for both North and South events were extremely popular when released by Evans in early November. Now, with so much great content already confirmed, demand is expected to be every bit as high for the remaining 25 per cent when they are released next week.
As ever a dazzling array of performing cars is right at the heart of the day time CarFest show and, ringing in the changes, this year's high-octane track sprint show will be split into two equally eye-catching sections.
First up the 'Time Tunnel' will take festival-goers on a magical evolutionary journey of motoring history from early Edwardian pioneers to some equally inventive futuristic treats. Highlights already confirmed include James Martin and his new Porsche 911 GT-3 (one of the first off the hallowed Stuttgart production line), two of last season's NASCAR Sprint Cup race cars, the 2015 Pikes Peak prepped Jaguar F-type as well as Chris Evans' own Famous Five vehicles.
The second 'Xtreme' phase of track action will step up the pace with dramatic displays by the Red Bull Racing Formula One team, the Top Gear Live Stunt Team plus eye-catching power laps by The Stig. Expect plenty of crowd-pleasing donuts, burning rubber and flame spitting engines.
As CarFest tradition now dictates, when the daytime dust has settled, the atmosphere changes from high revving road show to pop festival. Among the live music acts already announced for this summer are Will Young, Bryan Adams, The Corrs, James Morrison and Squeeze. What's more, Evans will be revealing more famous names next week in the build up to the final ticket release.
While revs and riffs are the CarFest lifeblood, they are just part of an amazing line-up of fun-filled activities and attractions. The 2016 North and South festivals offer even more than ever before and joining us this summer are professional dancing stars known to TV audiences - Kevin, Karen and Joanne Clifton plus the gorgeous Natalie Lowe - who will be adding dance tips and demos to the line-up to inspire and entertain festival-goers of all generations.
With so many visitors really getting into the summer festival vibe by camping on site, mouthwatering food is another hugely popular ingredient… and not just to eat. Adding to this year's gastronomic mix, a new Food Fair area will feature cooking demonstrations, culinary lessons, talks and tastings as well as the CarFest Kitchen, a dedicated stage serving up live and interactive food entertainment.
It all adds up to two more wonderfully eclectic CarFest weekends.
Those not wanting to miss out when the remaining tickets are released on Thursday morning are strongly advised to log onto the official www.carfest.org website in advance and use the navigation to access the stress-busting 'Tips for Buying Tickets' section.