Tag Archives: music festivals

Simon Foster

Where’s the level playing field for music festivals?

By Simon Foster | Tue 29th June 2021 - 1:03 pm

WOMAD – the independent World of Music and Dance festival became the latest victim of the Coronavirus last night. Organiser and musician Peter Gabriel said on the event’s website:

It is with great regret that we are cancelling WOMAD ’21 today (28th June). Without the simple support of a government insurance scheme or the guarantee of Test Event status, we cannot continue and put WOMAD’s long term future at risk. We feel that our audience, artists, staff, and contractors, who have been amazingly supportive throughout all this, will understand the need for us to act to guarantee our survival.

The festival was due to start on 22nd July – 72 hours after Government restrictions are due to end on the 19th July. All that WOMAD were asking for was a level playing field – to become a Government test event and qualify for Government backed insurance to be underwritten in case the festival was cancelled.

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | 1 Comment
Advert

Recent Comments

  • Peter Wrigley
    To my mind our mail purpose is the preservation, promotion and improvement of liberal democracy, and no one on this post has mentioned it yet. Given that it i...
  • David Raw
    @ David Allen "Another, 'why are we going nowhere' lament.". Are you saying that's not the case, David, when plainly it is ? How to remedy this without new...
  • Jeff
    Hywel 23rd Oct '26 - 8:18pm: I was curious as to why Norwegian gas piped to the UK should be so low carbon than UK extracted gas. Mostly becau...
  • David Allen
    Another "why are we going nowhere" lament. Another series of proposals to make an instant breakthrough to mass public adulation, either by loudly advocating bo...
  • Jeff
    Alex Macfie 5th Nov '26 - 10:24am: …tech bros are actually supportive of age-gating online platforms because they can afford the cost of doing this...