Arts festival cancelled due to lack of funding

The organisers of a cancelled arts festival have said they need to "go back to the drawing board" before making plans for next year.

Light Night Worcester, which includes interactive installations around the city, is normally held over two nights in the February half term.

But the arts company behind it said it had been forced to cancel because of a lack of money.

"Finding funding for cultural events is really competitive at the moment," said Elaine Knight from Severn Arts, "and unfortunately we just haven't been successful in raising enough funds to put the event on this year."

The last Light Night, in 2024, attracted 20,000 people.

Ms Knight said the cost of putting it on varied, but was roughly £200,000.

"We've had loads of local support from local businesses, local funders, so... the local support has been there," she said.

"It's just with that level of funding we also need to find funding from outside of the city. And that's the bit that hasn't been successful this year."

Ms Knight said an attempt last year to crowdfund only raised a very small amount, and in any case it was now too late to start this year.

She suggested that if the event went ahead next year, it might be on a smaller scale.

"We did think about that this year and we took the difficult decision that in terms of audience expectation... that really wasn't possible. So we just need to have a bit of a rethink, with the numbers that do come, what that could look like," she said.

"We know it's been successful, we know that the audiences have loved it, so we just need to take on board all of that and talk to partners about what might happen next."

Follow BBC Hereford & Worcester on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.