Cancelled Folk Festivals - A Worrying Trend?

Posted by Shelley Rainey on 15 March 2011

We have been shocked in recent months by the loss of several major folk festivals. The first casualty was Oysterband’s Big Session (which usually happens in June), then Trowbridge (late July) and most recently Oxford. Is this a sign of bleak times ahead, or a blip which will see things back to normal in 2012?

The reasons behind the cancellations are similar - the Big Session has always been held in the De Montfort Hall, Leicester, but recent council cuts have meant that the festival could not continue in its current form. Trowbridge and Oxford have suffered from the spiralling costs of insurance, the VAT rise and poor advanced ticket sales as people start to watch their pockets more carefully.

However, there are glimmers of hope. The Big Session will be decamping to the Leveller’s Beautiful Days festival in Devon this year. They will be taking over the Big Top on Sunday 20th August, and are entering into a partnership with a major festival promoter with a view to re-launching the festival at a new site in 2012.

Oxford will still have a weekend of folk even though the festival will not be running. The organisers of the folk day have no connection with the events, but many of the dance sides originally booked will be taking part thus helping to keep the profile of folk music and dance high ready for the return of the festival.

Trowbridge, which has been running for 38 years, is considering this year to be a sabbatical and organisers have every intention of being able to hold the festival next year.

Another encouraging sign is the re-launched Bristol Folk Festival, which will be taking place this year for the first time in 32 years. Setting up a new festival in these times of financial restraint is a brave move, but with such a fantastic line-up the festival should be a great success.

Comments

I wouldn’t be too pessimistic. For one thing, Big Session’s problems stem from the financial mismanagement of De Montfort Hall (http://tinyurl.com/5rdy8g6). And certainly the economic situation has an effect, but there are two other reasons why I think some folk festivals have headaches.

First, there has been a big growth in music festivals generally in the last ten years, and this growth couldn’t continue. Crudely, there were more and more festivals chasing after people’s money and it was inevitable that some festivals would fail.

Secondly, many music fans - including fans of ’nu-folk’ - expect a big stage show, but folk traditionally doesn’t deliver this. Clubs are more intimate than bigger music venues and there’s only a limited pool of folk acts who have successfully straddled the two worlds. I’m not sure there are enough of these ’headliner’ folk acts to sustain the growth in folk festivals, so perhaps smaller festivals are the way forward.

BrandNewGuy
Bright young user

It strikes me that there is an analogy with pubs, lots of which have closed in the last few year, and for similar reasons (lack of spending power etc.). I was talking to a landlord of a successful pub that puts on a lot of music recently, and his view was that if you do the simple things well you will prosper. Still, I feel sorry for the festivals that can’t keep going. I’ve been to both Trowbridge and the Big Session and they were both great.

Peter Webster
Bright young user