This year's Radio Festival will take place in Salford Quays, the home of Media City UK, RadioToday.co.uk can exclusively reveal.
Organised by The Radio Academy, the Festival is also changing its regular summer date in favour of an October event, and will be chaired by BBC Audio and Music Director Tim Davie.
Travis Baxter, MD of Bauer Radio will be Tim's deputy, as representatives of Global Radio, Bauer Radio, GMG Radio, Absolute Radio and the BBC are among those who've accepted invitations to join the committee.
The news marks a change of direction for the Radio Festival, as it aims to provide more events in one, including the Radio At The Edge conference and Hall of Fame Dinner, both previously held in London towards the end of the year.
The Festival will overlook the site that will be known as Media City UK – and future home of BBC 5 live and BBC Radio Manchester. Salford Quays is already home to commercial radio stations Xfm, Gold, Galaxy, Real, Smooth and Rock Radio.
Trevor Dann, Chief Executive of the Academy said: "This year's Festival will be the biggest and best ever. We are rolling some of our annual smaller events into one unmissable occasion which everyone in UK radio will want to attend. The Sony Radio Academy Awards in the Spring and the Radio Festival in the Autumn will be the twin peaks of UK radio's year."
Tim Davie said: "I'm delighted to be chairing the Radio Festival as part of such a strong organising committee. I'm particularly pleased that this year the whole industry will come together and am looking forward to being part of what promises to be an outstanding event."
Travis Baxter said: “This year's Festival will secure radio’s place at the centre of the consumer media revolution and build on radio’s creative success that delivers over 45 million listeners a week.”
More details of the programme and venues from [b]October 18th to 20th [/b]will be announced shortly, with bookings starting in May.