Yahoo Finance Boomtown cancelled: Festival postponed until 2022, citing lack of government support
Back at the beginning of March, the Association of Independent Festivals (AIF) warned that if a government-backed Covid insurance scheme for music festivals didn’t materialise by the end of that month, then a wave of cancellations would soon follow.
Now, Boomtown has become the latest UK festival to fall victim to such a scenario. Announcing the news, organisers of the Winchester festival said they were “absolutely devastated” to announce their postponement for 2021 — and directly called out the lack of government support as major a factor in their decision.
“After almost half a year of collective campaigning to the government,” the statement read, “sadly Covid specific cancellation insurance for events still does not exist at this point in time. This means anyone putting on an event this year, will be doing so without the safety net of insurance to cover them should Covid prevent them going ahead in any capacity.”
For an “independent event as large and complex as Boomtown,” the organisers continued, “this is a huge gamble of up to an eight-figure sum, and the financial risk is simply too high”.
Boomtown will reschedule to 2022, and is set to return from August 10-14 next year.
We are absolutely devastated to announce that unfortunately, we will no longer be holding Boomtown Chapter One: The Gathering this year and it will now take place from 10 - 14th August 2022 🦋❤️
Find more details and ticket FAQ’s here: https://t.co/bu5Lw71mLj pic.twitter.com/9rM5BFVSfw— Boomtown Fair (@BoomtownFair) April 20, 2021
The lack of insurance has been a source of major concern among the festival industry ever since it was announced that large scale events would be allowed to return from June 21 at the earliest. Traditional insurers have refused to give backing to events in case of Covid cancellation, and with the Government failing to step in to provide an insurance scheme — as they have done for both the UK’s film and television industries — a number of festivals have been forced to cancel for 2021.
Barn on the Farm in Gloucester and Cheshire’s Bluedot have also announced their postponements, citing lack of insurance. The AIF had previously warned that 92.5 per cent of its members had said they would not go ahead without such a thing.
LIVE, the industry body that represents the live music industry and of which AIF is a part, issued a statement calling on the Government to use money left over from the Culture Recovery Fund to create a “contigency fund”, in lieu of an official insurance scheme.
Greg Parmley, Chief Executive of LIVE, said: “Without some form of contingency fund in place, the risk of undertaking activity this summer will simply be too great for the majority of events. We are already seeing an increasing rate of cancellations, including Glastonbury and now Boomtown, and that will become a flood in the coming weeks if a solution isn’t found.
“The live music industry thinks that using unspent Culture Recovery Money to create a contingency pot to provide some form of protection for events is the best way to get money through the entire live music ecosystem – from artists and venues to technical staff and freelance crew – by enabling people to get back to work.”
As it stands, a number of major festivals have in fact confirmed plans to go ahead in 2021. Check out our guide to the line-ups announced so far.
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