The largest student concert of the year will take place at Millstreet, Co Cork, on Thursday week, February 24th, and it's all for a good cause. Ragfest 2000, or "R2K", at the Green Glens Arena is being jointly organised by the students' unions of Cork, Limerick and Tralee institutes of technology, but tickets are going to be sold to all third-level students in Munster.

The organisers of the event are expecting an attendance of around 8,000 people with all proceeds going to the rag week charities of the three organising unions. R2K will feature some of the top national and international names in dance music and cover bands in its line up. The main arena will feature top names including Abbariginals, the Quarrymen, LA Doors, Oasisnt, Robbie Williams Tribute Band and Zoo2. The dance arena will be headlined by Timo Maas and is also set to feature Colin Hamilton, Raymond Franklin, Bass Odyssey, Jay Kay, Eamon Beacon, David Hughes and Donnie Power. Tim Clifford, president of Cork IT students' union, mounted a determined assault on the world hype record when he said: "Not even Woodstock or Glastonbury could ever hope to get the line up that would include Abba, the Beatles, Oasis, Robbie Williams and U2. At Ragfest 2000 we have the next best thing by bringing together the top cover bands in Europe covering music from these legendary names."

Then Clifford went further: "Our line-up for the dance arena reads like a who's who of the dance world. This is the top dance line-up in Ireland since Homelands and features household names that have played all the top dance venues in Ireland, Britain and on the continent. Names like Timo Maas, Colin Hamilton and Bass Odyssey have filled venues on their own, yet at Ragfest 2000 we are bringing these individual stars together." He gushed on: "We are really looking forward to the night. It's going to be huge - in my time in college I have never seen anything like it. "As well as that, we are especially pleased to be able to give all the proceeds to some local and national charities."