Ronan Keating and Blue play Lower Castle Park on 21 August 2027 and Simply Red on 18 August. Presale tickets open at 10am on 23 and 24 September.
The first two concerts of the 2027 Colchester Castle Summer Series have been confirmed, and the presale for both opens this week.
Simply Red headline Lower Castle Park on Wednesday 18 August 2027. Ronan Keating and Blue co-headline on Saturday 21 August 2027. Both are published on the promoter’s own site, colchestercastlesummerseries.co.uk, which calls 2027 the series’ third year at the park.
The two nights announced so far:
- Wednesday 18 August 2027: Simply Red, led by Mick Hucknall, with special guests Heather Small and Soul II Soul
- Saturday 21 August 2027: Ronan Keating and Blue co-headlining, with special guests The Germein Sisters
Presale opens this week
The promoter has put the two presales on consecutive mornings, and both are before the end of September:
- Simply Red presale: 10am, Wednesday 23 September 2026
- Ronan Keating and Blue presale: 10am, Thursday 24 September 2026
Access to the presale is by signing up on the show page, which asks for an email address and says a mobile number gives “most efficient presale access”. Neither show page gives a general on-sale date, and no ticket price is published on either. Accessible tickets are sold through Ticketmaster rather than the series site.
What the show pages say about the night
Both concerts carry the same conditions, and two of them will decide whether the night suits you:
- Event times: 16:00 to 22:30 on both nights
- Standing, with no seated option advertised on either page
- Re-entry is not possible, stated in capitals on both pages
- Age 6+: anyone aged 6 to 17 must be with an adult over 21, and one adult can accompany up to three under-18s
The venue is Lower Castle Park, CO1 1XL. The promoter’s venue page describes the site as taking “up to 40,000 concertgoers over one thrilling weekend”.
The announcement came four weeks earlier than last year
The series’ own website records when each show page went live. The Simply Red and Ronan Keating pages were both published on 17 September 2026. The equivalent page for Billy Ocean, described on it as the first headliner announced for 2026, went up on 13 October 2025.
That is close to four weeks earlier in the booking cycle, which matters locally for one reason: the 2026 series ran to seven nights, and most of those were announced between October and January. On that pattern there is more of the 2027 line-up still to come.
For the record, 2026 ran across two August weekends, all at Castle Park:
| Date | Headliner |
|---|---|
| Thursday 20 August | Billy Ocean |
| Friday 21 August | Hollywood Vampires |
| Saturday 22 August | Becky Hill |
| Sunday 23 August | Bastille |
| Thursday 27 August | Richard Ashcroft |
| Friday 28 August | JLS |
| Saturday 29 August | Fatboy Slim |
The same archive lists eight shows from the first year in 2025: Tom Jones, Madness, Busted, Texas with Natalie Imbruglia, Craig David, UB40 featuring Ali Campbell, the Smashing Pumpkins, and James with Happy Mondays. The team behind the series also runs the Margate Summer Series, South Facing Festival, Hitchin Priory Series and Cardiff Bay Series, according to its about page.
What it means for you
If you want either show, the decision is this week rather than next year. The presale is the only route currently advertised, and signing up takes an email address.
Three practical points:
- Both nights are standing with no re-entry. If you need a seat, or expect to come and go, check the accessible ticket route through Ticketmaster before you buy rather than after.
- The age rule is strict on ratios, not just on age: one adult over 21 per three under-18s.
- It is nearly a year away. Line-ups and timings at this stage are the promoter’s, not a contract; the 2026 series added headliners as late as January.
Lower Castle Park sits behind the castle in the city centre, so the practical questions are the usual ones. Our guide to parking in Colchester covers the city-centre car parks and their closing times, and Colchester train times to London has the last departures from both stations. If you are driving in on the day, the Colchester roadworks and travel page carries what is closed that week.
Sources: Colchester Castle Summer Series show pages for Simply Red and Ronan Keating and Blue, its venue and about pages, and the publication dates recorded by the same site for its own 2025 and 2026 show pages.
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