Early birds are being urged to flock to Hitchin’s Market Place at the end of the month to be first in the pecking order for discount tickets to this summer’s Rhythms of the World festival.

It’s the first time that organisers have offered cut-price advance tickets to the Hitchin Priory feast of music and community arts, which this year will be held on Saturday and Sunday, June 20 and 21.

The early bird tickets – costing £12 for either day – will go on sale when the festival team mans a stall in the centre over the weekend of Saturday and Sunday, March 28 and 29.

Tracy Lane, part of the team spreading the word about this year’s festival, said: “Not only can you grab tickets for either day, you can get all the gossip before anyone else on what will be happening at this year’s event.

“Early bird tickets are limited in numbers so once they’re gone, they’re gone!”

If you can’t make it to the Market Place weekend, videos promoting the festival produced by Hitchin-based Film Infinity have been uploaded to YouTube – hear from sponsors about why they support ROTW and find out from festival-goers why up to 30,000 people flock to Rhythms each year.

Find out more about the festival and how you can get involved online at www.rotw.org.uk.