Deer Shed Festival, Baldersby Park, Topcliffe, near Thirsk, July 16

The Wedding Present, Justin Adams and Juldeh Camera and The WonderStuff’s Miles Hunt and Erica Nookalls and Danny & The Champions Of The World are among those who will perform at a rural gathering that is the fruition of organisers Oliver and Kate Webster-Jones’s pipe dream to create a “live music/child-friendly utopia”.

Running from noon to 11pm, the festival of music, art and kids’ activities will combine live music, comedy and poetry with circus and animation workshops and more besides for the children. A family choir, Jet Set Morris Dancing, yoga sessions and the chance to make your own freedom boot all add to the variety.

Oliver and Kate have plenty of experience in the music business, and since moving north from London they have already established the In The Dock concert series at the Old Courthouse in Thirsk, presenting such acts as King Creosote and J Tillman.

Now comes their first festival. “We’ve worked very, very hard to get who we’ve got for the music line-up,” says Oliver. “We’ve punched above our weight as it’s our first year. It’s hard just because we’re new; no-one knows whether it’ll go ahead or whether tickets will sell.

“People go on the website to judge it, when it’s not happened before, and your on-line presence has to reassure them – and as I’m a website developer with my own web production company, doing film campaigns for Paramount and media and ad agencies, if I can’t do it I might as well be a bin man!”

The Deer Shed Festival focuses on “older music fans with kids who are still passionate about their music”. “Usually, when you’re a kid-friendly festival, the music is always middle of the road and you’re not going to get anything cutting edge, but we’re different,” says Oliver.

The presence of The Young Knives, Groanbox, Alessi’s Ark, Young Rebel Set and Lone Wolf & Blue Roses (in a joint set) is proof of that claim, while The Wedding Present are the Yorkshire headline act with more than nostalgic pulling power to their name.

“The Wedding Present are a heritage band; you can’t get away from that, but we felt that if we were going to get a heritage band, you want to choose one that’s still relevant, and they’re still cool and people are still passionate about them,” says Oliver.

“I’m just 40 and for people like me, they’re a great choice, as their fans are really into them and deeply affected by them.” As for the rest of the line-up, “They’re bands that we really like; bands that we think would appeal at a ‘normal’ festival, like the Leeds Festival, where no-one would blink an eye at seeing them in the line-up,” says Oliver. “But we’ve also put just as much work into the children’s activities, so the festival is a long-considered response to what we believe was wrong with lots of festivals we’ve gone to,” says Oliver.

“When you want to put together a festival from scratch, you have to think about who you’re going to appeal to and we’d rather not appeal to the 16 to 25 age group that goes to Leeds.”

* THE Wedding Present will be playing their second album, 1989’s Bizarro, in its entirety as the basis of their set tomorrow at the Deer Shed Festival.

“The decision to tour this album – which we’ve already done on 25 dates in America, where I’m living at the moment – goes back to the George Best album tour we did,” says David Gedge, leader of the band with deep Leeds roots.

“That was a bit of a complicated story in itself. Sanctuary Records were talking about re-releasing it and finally said, ‘How do you fancy doing a George Best tour?’.

“I can say that I didn’t really fancy it as I’m not into looking back but everyone said ‘You must do it’, and I actually ended up really enjoying it and re-evaluating the album 20 years on.”

Maybe it was good to re-assess the past after all, David decided. Hence The Wedding Present are revisiting Bizarro. “I always thought it was a better album than George Best. I just think the band had evolved; the album was more thought out,” he says. “George Best was the sound of a band trying to do something and failing, which is interesting, but as an artist you want to improve. Bizarro is more layered and complex; it’s harder to play live, with a lot of long, fast, strenuous tracks to play.”

David is delighted to be returning to Yorkshire to play the Deer Shed event. “It’s the first time the festival’s happened, and the idea of putting on a show in a lovely field appealed to me. It’s sort of a no-brainer to say ‘yes’ to doing it.”

How do you feel about being called a heritage act? “I’ve accepted it now. I’m 50!,” says David. “I’ve done this interview for this bloke who’s doing a book on reaching 50 after a survey said that as you approach 50, you get more miserable, and then once you’re past 50, things start to get brighter as you’ve made it. “Apparently people over 50 generally feel more optimistic…”

…Do you? “Only time will tell.”