50 festivals cancelled in 2024

Northwich’s Geronimo Festival has announced the cancellation of this year’s event.

50 UK festivals have now announced a postponement, cancellation or complete closure in 2024.

Northwich’s Geronimo Festival, which was due to take place from 23 - 26 August, has announced that its 2024 edition will not be going ahead.

Without intervention, it’s expected that the UK will see over 100 festivals disappear in 2024 due to the pressures of unpredictable and rising costs.

With 96 events lost to Covid, 36 in 2023 and 50 to date in 2024, the total number of UK festivals to have disappeared since 2019 is 182.

Without having had successive steady seasons since the pandemic in which to recover, the country’s festivals are under more financial strain than ever.

At the start of February, The AIF launched a new campaign asking for a temporary VAT reduction on festival tickets that would save many event promoters from closure.

The 5% For Festivals campaign is an awareness campaign that seeks to inform festival-goers about the problems that music festival promoters have faced over the last five years, encouraging them to contact their MPs to lobby for a much needed VAT reduction on tickets. That campaign is paused whilst the country prepares to elect a new Government.

Temporary support from the UK Government - lowering VAT from 20% to 5% on ticket sales for the next three years - is what is needed to give festival promoters the space they need to rebuild.

The full list of lost festivals in 2024 can be found here.

AIF CEO John Rostron said: “This is a regrettable landmark for the UK’s festival sector. This is the most challenging time for independent festivals who desperately need an intervention from the incoming government before more events inevitably fall. Our research suggests around 100 festivals will throw in the towel before the year is out, and more will go into 2025 at risk if there is not the temporary fiscal support they need.”