Cropredy Festival postpones to 2022

Fairport Convention backstage at Cropredy 2017 — (Image credit: Fairport Convention/Cropredy)

Fairport Convention’s Cropredy Festival has postponed to 2022. it is yet another major music festival forced to take such drastic action again citing the UK government's lack of support for music festivals as a major contributing factor.

The three-day event had been scheduled to take place on 12-14 August this year. It will now be staged over the weekend of 11, 12, 13 August 2022 on its usual farmland site in Oxfordshire.

"We’re left with no other choice than to postpone our festival again," says Festival Director Gareth Williams. "We have reached the point where we’d need to spend big money but without any certainty we could go ahead. The dilemma we are facing is simple – proceed and risk potentially going out of business or postpone for a year and live to fight another day."

“So far, despite over six months of lobbying, the government has failed to support any form of Covid-related cancellation insurance scheme for the festival industry,” Mr Williams continued. "Also, there has been no guidance on what mitigations might be required post Step 4. This has made it effectively impossible to plan this year’s event.”

“Like the rest of the festival industry, we’ve tried everything we can to keep going but I’m afraid we would be placing Cropredy’s future in serious jeopardy if we were to go ahead.”

The organisers hope the current line-up of acts will be carried forward. Artists booked to appear this year have provisionally agreed to transfer their bookings to 2022. Highlights are expected to include Trevor Horn Band, Clannad, Steve Hackett’s Genesis Revisited, Richard Thompson, and host band Fairport Convention.

Mr Williams said tickets purchased in 2020 and 2021 will be valid for the rescheduled festival. “Ticket buyers who can’t attend next year will be entitled to a refund,” he added, “but we hope people will hang on to their tickets until next year. This will help us keep the festival going throughout the coming months while we prepare a great weekend of music for next summer.”

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Writer and broadcaster Jerry Ewing is the Editor of Prog Magazine which he founded for Future Publishing in 2009. He grew up in Sydney and began his writing career in London for Metal Forces magazine in 1989. He has since written for Metal Hammer, Maxim, Vox, Stuff and Bizarre magazines, among others. He created and edited Classic Rock Magazine for Dennis Publishing in 1998 and is the author of a variety of books on both music and sport, including Wonderous Stories; A Journey Through The Landscape Of Progressive Rock.