AFTER an eight-year holiday, Music in the Sun returned to the Don Valley Bowl with thousands of people taking part in what organisers billed as 'the number one multicultural cohesion festival in the North of England'.

And multicultural cohesion was what it was all about, as the very cohesive Johnny Nelson toured the field, greeting and shaking hands with almost everyone.

See pictures from the event

"Every city needs a festival like this to bring people together," he said. "It's something positive for everyone, there's Asian white and black people and everyone getting on."

The original Music in the Sun began behind the Wicker in 1989 when around 200 people held a music festival in the car park of the Sheffield and District Afro-Caribbean Community Association.

As the event grew it moved to the Don Valley Bowl in Attercliffe until it drew its biggest crowd of 60,000 in 1997 before retiring (at least for a few years) in 2000.

Enthusiasm had waned a bit by then, said Johnny Nelson, and the weather on several occasions hadn't helped.

But the new Music in the Sun is set to stay on the Northern calendar, he added. Johnny, and several other enthusiastic business folk of the area, are determined to see Music in the Sun become an annual event once more.

"A city the size of Sheffield needs this," said chief organiser Dee Warburton of NonStop Events Ltd. "This is the fourth biggest city in the country, so we hope that the city council will support Music in the Sun in the future.

"We want it to be an annual event to attract international musicians to play alongside local talent from here in Sheffield."

Concerns about the possibility of gangs being attracted to last weekend's event proved unfounded, said Dee. The organisers had ensured that added security was in place, in the wake of recent knife and gun crime in the north of England, and it seemed to have done its job, he added.

He estimated that 8,000 or 9,000 people had attended on each of the two days of the festival and all had generally enjoyed a relaxed and trouble-free atmosphere, with quite a bit of sun amid the music, too.

"Apparently the festival at Leicester has been a washout," said Johnny Nelson on Sunday afternoon, as the grey clouds began to mass on the horizon.

This year's festival-goers came from all over Yorkshire, the north of England and even from as far away as London, he said – and some musicians had come even further. "You can't get anywhere better than this," he said of the Don Valley venue. "Everyone can get to it from everywhere.

"There are festivals in London, Leicester even Huddersfield. You need something special, something positive for everybody."

Dee Warburton is already looking at additional venues, perhaps an indoor festival over the winter, and maybe an even bigger outdoor festival in Nottinghamshire next year.

But for the moment it certainly looks as if Music in the Sun is back.