Wigan restaurant to relaunch popular music festival

Michael Madini, owner of The Olive Garden in Standish is bringing back the Music OG Festival in May

The Olive Garden restaurant in Standish will once again put on its one-day event The OG Fest in May.

It will be the first time the Preston Road venue has staged the event since 2015 as the 2016 festival had to be cancelled and bosses could not get permission for last year’s bash either.

However, a recent licence application for the 2018 festival went through without a hitch which means several well-known Wigan musical names will be heading to perform at the family-friendly event.

The Olive Garden’s owner Michael Madani said he is delighted to be welcoming the local community into the venue for an afternoon of music and fun once more.

He said: “We are really happy that this year Wigan Council has granted us a licence for The OG Fest.

“It is a great day for Standish and the community. We’ve grown the festival over a few years from something quite small and the last one we held was fantastic.

“Everyone we’ve spoken to in the Standish and Coppull areas is really looking forward to it. I know of people who have made their holiday plans around this day.

“We’re very happy to bring that feeling back to the community and we are so excited for the festival to be back.”

Wigan Council confirmed there had been no objections to the additional temporary licence for the event, meaning the festival was given the green light to go ahead.

Popular Wigan rockers Boomin have been drafted in as headliners and bassist Rory O’Grady said he was also pleased to see the music event returning.

Rory said: “This festival really seems to bring the community together and they are really going for it this year to make it bigger and better.

“We posted a video on Facebook for them and it got about 15,000 views. Lots of people were watching and tagging it.

“I remember playing one year when they also had Jeramiah Ferrari on and it went down really well.

“We were told afterwards that they needed to get us on the bill again.”

Joining the well-known three-piece on the bill for The OG Fest will be Rattled, Wigan guitarist Andy Mack who has been referred to as “the human jukebox” and Jaleel, which is the stage name of Michael’s brother.

Michael is also looking for one more act to complete the line-up at the restaurant, which was recently named Italian of the Year by the readers of the Wigan Post and Wigan Observer.

The performances will take place on a stage at the back of the venue.

As well as the music there will be a rodeo bull with competitions for who can stay on the bucking beast’s back the longest, bouncy castles, face painting, slides and other activities for youngsters.

The OG Fest at The Olive Garden is on May 27, starting at noon.