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Mighty Hoopla adds Jane McDonald to 2026 line-up
The mighty roar of festival season just found its new diva, as Mighty Hoopla—that glorious bastion of pop nostalgia and unapologetic camp—has officially secured the one and only Jane McDonald for its 2026 lineup. This isn't just another booking; it's a masterstroke of curation, a perfect chord struck in a symphony of glitter and gay anthems.For the uninitiated, Mighty Hoopla has carved out a unique space in the UK festival landscape, operating less like a traditional music event and more like a weekend-long, open-air gay club where the pop rejects and one-hit wonders of yesteryear are not just welcomed but worshipped as deities. To have Jane McDonald, the cruise-ship singer turned national treasure and certified gay icon, join this pantheon feels like a homecoming.Her journey from winning hearts on the BBC docusoap 'The Cruise' in the late 90s to becoming a platinum-selling songstress and beloved television personality is the kind of authentic, against-the-odds narrative that Hoopla's audience venerates. Her comment on the announcement, 'Big band, big vocals, in fact it's gonna be bloody lovely.Come on you know you want to come,' is pure, unadulterated Jane: warm, self-aware, and dripping with the kind of northern charm that has made her a fixture on shows like 'Loose Women' and her own series of travel and music programmes. This booking is a strategic crescendo for the festival, which has built its reputation on resurrecting the careers of pop acts like Vengaboys and S Club, but McDonald represents something different—a figure whose appeal transcends a specific era of pop music and taps into a broader cultural affection.Her performance is poised to be the main stage event of the weekend, a set likely to feature her powerhouse renditions of 'This Is Me' and 'The Voice,' songs that have become unofficial anthems of self-acceptance and resilience within the LGBTQ+ community. The move signals Mighty Hoopla's continued evolution from a niche nostalgia trip into a powerful celebration of queer culture's most cherished allies, proving that in a fragmented media world, the unifying power of a big voice and an even bigger heart can still command a field full of thousands, all singing in glorious, unified harmony.
#Mighty Hoopla
#Jane McDonald
#gay icon
#music festival
#2026 line-up
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