The Festival of the Tenth Summer was a music and art festival that took place in Manchester, UK in July 1986. The festival was organized by Factory Records to celebrate the city of Manchester specifically with reference to the first performance by the Sex Pistols at the Lesser Free Trade Hall on 4 June 1976. The Festival of the Tenth Summer consisted of ten events, culminating in an all day music festival at the Greater Manchester Exhibition Center on 19 July 1986. The festival has its own number in the Factory Records catalog, FAC 151. 40" x 60" number posters were sniped throughout the city counting down to the event beginning with the number 9, nine weeks prior, the number 8, eight weeks prior and so on, ending with the 0. Peter Saville Associates created the number system and most of the artwork, collateral materials and merchandise as well as an art exhibit of giant numbers for the festival.
Zero Poster ending the nine-week countdown leading to The Festival of the 10th Summer, Manchester, 1986.
Photograph showing the 8 Poster sniped throughout the city of Manchester eight weeks prior to The Festival of the 10th Summer.
The number 3 shown as a silk-screen press sheet to be trimmed for a series of Number Postcards sold at the festival.
Silk-screened Number Postcards sold at the festival.
Satellite view of England with an orange cross indicating Manchester. The Poster “The Tenth Event” was for the final music event held at the Greater Manchester Exhibition Center featured The Smiths, New Order, The Fall, Cabaret Voltaire, A Certain Ratio, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Pete Shelley / Buzzcocks and others.
Tickets for “The Tenth Event”.
