A HUGE new music festival headlined award-winning musicians is being launched in Essex.

Chelmsford City Live 2025 will take place at Chelmsford City Racecourse next July with a capacity of up to 30,000 people each day.

Megastar Justin Timberlake will headline on Friday. July 4 while Essex's own Olly Murs will headline his biggest homecoming show two days later on Sunday, July 6.

Murs will also be joined by Blue, Lemar and Mark Wright for a DJ set.

Organisers say there are more "huge" headliner announcements to come.

Chelmsford City Live 2025 will host up to four standalone headline concerts giving music fans the option to attend single days or to buy a multi-day pass.

All concerts will take place on non-race days.

The new event is a partnership between Chelmsford City Racecourse and Live Nation promoters Cuffe and Taylor.

Cuffe and Taylor promoter Ben Hatton said: “We are delighted to be announcing a whole new festival for Essex for 2025 and beyond. The venue essentially provides us with a blank canvas that will enable us to attract some of the biggest names in the world of live music today and that means our options are endless.

“We hope this is the start of a very long relationship with the team at Chelmsford City Racecourse and we look forward to welcoming global artists to this most beautiful part of the world.

“It is also particularly special to me as I’m Essex born and bred so to be presenting huge scale concerts on my home turf is something I’m very excited about. We already have two amazing headliners for Chelmsford City Live with Justin Timberlake and Olly Murs and we’ll be announcing two more in the coming weeks.”

Chelmsford City Racecourse has presented a number of concerts on race days since its inception in 2015 but nothing to the scale of Chelmsford City Live.

Head of events at Chelmsford City Racecourse Anthony Coleridge added: “We’re over the moon to be launching this amazing new music festival for the South-East.  

“Working with Live Nation and Cuffe and Taylor is a fantastic opportunity for the venue and by forming this partnership  we now have the opportunity to attract some of the world’s most celebrated stars of music for Chelmsford City Live.

“2025 is the start of what we hope is a long and exciting relationship which will ultimately bring the best of live music to the people of Essex and beyond.”

For more information, visit chelmsfordcitylive.com.