RADAR Festival 2024

This year’s Radar festival was Scans most successful yet and proved yet again what a fantastic partnership it has been working with the Radar team for the last three years. Three days of Progressive metal and rock, free gaming, a music market and merch stall gave music fans the opportunity to sample festival life but in the heart of Manchester.

Working closely with our partners at Source Distribution, Headstock, Thrustmaster, Jackson, Roland, Yamaha and ASUS ROG, Scan was able to provide a unique experience for festival goers with one punter commenting that “you can literally go and watch one of you favourite bands, get hyped, then go upstairs and actually play guitar or jam with a drummer and bass player!”.

The music market year in year keeps getting better with a host of guitar brands for sale, a jam room with some of our own Fairclough’s to play and buy. Source provided a world class area to try some of the most innovative synthesisers around. Scans own tech out your table top rea proved incredibly popular with new and innovative ways to play classic games like Magic the Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons using a touch screen TV for a more immersive experience and Roland Bridgecast X to change your voice!

MrGregles brought some true innovation to the music market with a Super Mario/Roland Drum kit crossover competition where you had to play the drums to control Mario, the gamer with the highest score went on to win an incredible pack of goodies from MrGregles. The fun didn’t end there as Scan brought the now infamous Rage Quit booth back to Radar. Scream your way onto the leaderboard as anyone who managed over 115dB got a chance to win a prize from the claw machine.

The Jam room saw a superb range of Fairclough electric guitars spanning our 2023 and 2024 runs. You could jam on one of two Roland electronic drum kits, using the TD50kv2 and TD17KVxt festival goers could play with guitar and bass players providing some of the highlights of the weekend. It’s not often you get to see MrGregles on Drums, Mike Malyan former drummer for Monuments on bass and GreyLotus guitar maestro Drewsif shredding some 90s grunge classics!

Downstairs Scan provided festival goers a safe drink driving experience with the Thrustmaster powered racing simulator, with the opportunity to compete on the leaderboard trying to beat Paul Lloyds fastest lap time. The winner of which could take home a Thrustmaster T818 steering wheel and the top 15 placements all won a copy of F1-2024.

With some of the worlds best bands on display across two packed stages, festival goers had a tremendous weekend of live music, gaming and instruments. With 2025 already ion the works we can only expect another fantastic weekend of festivity.