More than 35 acts took to the mic over the two days of the East Midlands Food and Drink Festival to showcase the Vale's musical talent.
ValeFest director Mitch de Faria said: "When the opportunity came up for us to launch the project at the festiv
al it was too good to miss.
"ValeFest is all about promoting local musicians, finding new and unusual performance venues and building live audiences and we proved we could do just that.
"We now have a springboard for the future. We are busy developing a new events programme for 2009 and planning a music weekend festival with Melton and Grantham-based concerts."
Performer Ben Atkinson, a sixth former at King Edward VII School in Melton, said: "I put on charity gigs with my friends but it's always hard finding venues and publicising the event but ValeFest could make a big difference."
The role of ValeFest, a not-for-profit initiative, is to act as an umbrella group promoting events, bringing creative people together and accessing grants to develop music and the arts.
It has already been approached to help set up a drum orchestra, a choir for people who can't sing but want to learn, to help put together a church bellringing festival and establish a Saturday morning music school in the Vale.
It is enlisting the support of a number of champions, including award-winning singer and composer Clare Teal and Nicholas Fogg, founder of the Marlborough Jazz Festival, and hopes to announce a patron soon.
For more information call 0845 053 5348 or visit http://valefest.com and http://valefestblog.blogspot.com
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