A NIGHT of live music and entertainment will be drumming up funds to get an annual Portland community festival back on track.

The Big Grove Summer Festival music night is being held on Saturday November 10 at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy.

The venue that hosted the Olympic and Paralympic Sailing events, is kindly donating the use of its refurbished Naval hangar for free, to enable the community group to boost its coffers.

The ‘Grove at the Hangar’ fundraiser will offer revellers five hours of live music from talented local bands.

All proceeds will be used for next year’s festival, which is currently facing ‘huge financial losses’ as a result of this year’s cancelled event.

In July, organisers were forced to cancel the sixth annual Big Grove Summer Festival 2012 at the last minute, as a result of the unprecedented heavy rains.

The Big Grove festival team were disappointed when weeks of rain flooded the site at the Grove stadium ground and they were unable to reschedule the event.

Organiser Sarah Whiteside said: “The Big Grove Summer Festival 2012 was one of dozens of the UK’s annual events to suffer cancellation as a result of the unprecedented heavy rains of this summer.

“The event team cancelled at the last minute, after weeks of rain flooded the site and made it impossible for the show to go on.

“Despite our best efforts, the rescheduling of the 2012 event has not been possible and after suffering huge financial losses, our aim now is to secure the future of our annual event.”

She added: “We have been incredibly lucky to be offered the use of The Hangar, an event venue within the Wey-mouth and Port-land National Sailing Academy, and invite everyone to join us on November 10 for our fundraising event.

“The event team is bringing together a night of some of the best local live music talent. We have five hours of live music, a fully licensed bar, hot food outlet and more.

“Thanks to Fuzzy Music Studio, we have a professional sound system in place and we are still looking for a couple more bands to sign up.”

Among the bands who have pledged to take part include Flybone Yellow, Operation Mad hatters. Tickets for the live music evening cost £3 per adult, £1 per child although any further donations will be gratefully received.

Doors will open at 6.30pm, with live music from 7pm.

More details can be found at www.grovefestival.co.uk and facebook.com/grovefestival