Veteran promoter, DJ and venue operator Alan Simms is launching two-day, multistage, Belfast festival Emerge.

Due to run on 27-28 August, Emerge will see around 40 acts including Eric Prydz, Disclosure and Peggy Gou perform across three stages. The promoter said the electronic music festival at Belfast City Council-owned Boucher Road Playing Fields will be the largest event of its kind in Ireland. Production will be handled in-house, and in partnership with Show-Inc Ireland & UK.

Simms established dance music club brand Shine Productions in 1995, and has launched festivals including Belsonic (cap. 15,000) in Belfast’s Ormeau Park and show series CHSQ (5,000) in the city’s Customs House Square. He is also the owner of Belfast music venue Limelight (750) and operates the Academy Dublin (850).

Simms, the co-promoter and director of Emerge, said, “The electronic music scene is one that has grown steadily in Belfast over the 30-odd years that I’ve been promoting in the city with my Shine brand, and it’s grown exponentially over the last few years. Belfast is one of the most fertile and dynamic scenes of its kind in the UK or Ireland.

“We’ve promoted many large scale outdoor electronic events in recent years but always wanted to do a huge multistage event of this kind. Feedback from our audience suggested that a huge appetite exists for a unique production of this kind in Northern Ireland. We’re lucky to have some of the world’s biggest names in dance music on our inaugural line-up of Emerge Music Festival, most of whom we’ve been working with since their very first club shows in the country.”