The biggest Beat-Herder Festival in the event’s history, running from July 1-3, is getting underway.

Put together by a group of six friends from Yorkshire, the summer festival — held on farmland in Sawley — has grown in status since it began in 2006, when its popularity was based around the Ribble Valley.

Now the three-day festival, which has sold out, is receiving national attention and the NME has praised its ‘back to basics’ ethos, with The Times naming Beat-Herder as the best festival in the UK for dancing.

Among the acts are electro beat band Simian Mobile Disco, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs with his trademark dinosaur outfit and The Lancashire Hotpots.

Also on the bill are the London kids We Have Band, who will be bringing their own brand of danceable indie, Andy Weatherall and Barry Ashworth and his band of merry Dub Pistols.

Mr Scruff will also perform, as will Plump DJs, Scotland’s finest Mylo, Riva Starr, Cornish lad Boy 8 Bit and acid techno artist Justin Robertson.

The Craig Charles Funk and Soul Show completes the line-up so far.

Organiser Nick Chambers said: “Festival land’s best-kept secret, the amazing Beat-Herder, is about to stretch out her sturdy northern arms for an amazing sixth year.

"And what a special one number six is going to be.”

Organisers say the Beat-Herder festival, which receives no official sponsorship, grew out of the northern underground party scene and brings together artistry, musical madness and ‘theatrical nonsense’ at a low-cost eco-friendly gathering.

2010 saw Beat-Herder scoop the runner up prize for ‘Best Dance Event’ at the UK Festival Awards and this year looks set to be the biggest event so far with a brand new and improved sound system for the Toil Trees stage.

With cheap locally produced food and drinks and surprises to be discovered round every corner (including a fully decked-out working men’s club and cinema in the woods), the festival has become an event for all the family.

Other attractions include Mikey’s Tea Shack, the Beat-Herder vibrating benches and, back for only the second year, Grandma’s Launderette, hidden deep in the trees through a 20m long tunnel.

* Beat-Herder, Dockber Farm, Sawley, July 1-3. Visit www.beatherder.co.uk.