UK festivals: Excitement building after Covid lockdowns

Many industries were hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, few more than the festival sector.

As organisers were putting together their programmes for the spring and summer of 2020, the UK went into full lockdown and all events were cancelled.

The following two years, with restrictions eased then re-imposed as different variants of the virus arrived, made it almost impossible to stage organised events that can take the best part of a year to plan.

As spring approaches, across the West - home to many of the UK's biggest festivals - organisers and promoters are crossing their fingers this summer will see a return to normal.

The biggest of them all - Glastonbury - has been confirmed as going ahead in 2022.

Organisers of music, art and family festivals have been recalling the challenges the pandemic posed and looking ahead to when audiences return.

Tom Paine, from Team Love which runs Bristol music festival Love Saves The Day, said the biggest challenge during the pandemic was uncertainty.

Love Saves The Day 2020 was due to take place in May, but two months earlier the country went into full lockdown. The festival asked to put the event back to September but, as Mr Paine said, "later in the summer it became clear festivals just weren't going to happen".

"These shows can take nine months of planning," he said.

"People were looking to the government for advice but to be fair to them they were in an almost impossible position because they didn't know what guidance to give."

In 2021 a rise in infections meant Love Saves The Day was once again postponed from May to September and this time the event was able to go ahead - with added safety restrictions.

Mr Paine said the presence of so many festivals in the West helped during the low moments.

"Bristol and the West is a great place to be in terms of support from the rest of the industry, we've got great organisers like the people behind Boomtown and Shambala, so we were on the phone to each other a lot.

"We also had a lot of support from the Association of Independent Festivals."

Although his team have faced two years of disruption and worry, Mr Paine said they were approaching the summer of 2022 with huge excitement. This year his long-held dream of holding the festival at Ashton Court should come true, over the Bank Holiday weekend of 2-3 June.

"As the days get longer and warmer I think we're going to feel a real growing excitement.

"Come April and May I think people will start talking and thinking about festivals again," said Mr Paine.

"Those shared experiences, those really big events, were taken away from all of us during lockdown and I think there is now a newfound appreciation for them."

After two years of being on hold or finding ways to hold events in a socially-distanced world, many of Bristol's big hitters have already said they will be returning with a bang.

The Bristol International Balloon Fiesta, Upfest, Bristol Harbour Festival, Dot to Dot, Bristol Pride, Bristol Craft Beer Festival, Bristol Light Festival, Bristol Sounds, Mayfest and Hopyard are among those to have confirmed dates.

Simon Clarke is part of the team that runs the Shindig Festival in Somerset. A lot has changed over the course of the pandemic, he said, and not all of it was good.

"It's been hard to keep a team together, employees, contractors.

"We've come out the other side and have been literally phoning around to see if people are still in business.

"That's tough when a whole company you have worked with and relied on for years just disappears.

"It's costing us a lot more money, fees have gone up generally in the events industry, there are fewer people to choose from so rates have risen.

"I've heard of some contractors doubling their prices."

Despite the financial challenges, Mr Clarke said he expected this year's Shindig Festival, from 26 to 29 May, to be "special".

"There's a real buzz," he said.

"People have waited to see these acts for two years. Ours is a small festival and a lot of people know each other and I think they can't wait to meet up again.

"There are also fewer tickets around in general.

"Glastonbury and Shambala and the other big festivals sold out in 2020, so people are having to think about smaller events like ours.

"I think people cannot wait to let their hair down."

The city-wide Bath Festival, which combines music and literature, is also returning this year.

Other Somerset events that have confirmed they will be going ahead in 2022 include the Weston Air Festival, Valley Fest, NASS, Priddy Folk Festival, Pub in the Park and ArcTanGent.

Helen Taylor, external relations director at Wiltshire Creative which runs the Salisbury International Arts Festival, said it had been "devastating" to cancel the event early in 2020.

"I was talking to some supporters the other day and we realised the last big event any of us went to was the launch event in 2020, then we went into lockdown not long afterwards," she said.

In 2021, it was still not possible to run the festival in its usual format, but there were plenty of online and socially-distanced events in the city.

Now, with tickets for the 2022 festival going on sale on 15 March Miss Taylor said it was "wildly exciting" to be counting down to the full festival once again.

"I really think it's going to be like a phoenix rising from the ashes.

"It's also nerve-wracking because you look across the industry and see that audiences have been slightly slow to return, they've got out of the habit," she added.

"We really need them to come back and buy those tickets and experience what's been a year's worth of planning for us."

Miss Taylor said the pandemic had had an impact on programming for this year's expanded festival, which will run from 27 May to 18 June, and created a desire to work with different communities.

"We've got the Bath Philharmonia coming, and they're working with Wiltshire Young Carers.

"We are also taking events up to Bemerton Heath [estate], we're having a beach party day which is free, and we'll do the same out at Tidworth for the military community there."

Womad, the UK's biggest world music event, is also going ahead in Wiltshire in the summer, starting on 28 July.

But not every event is returning.

Organisers of the Larmer Tree Festival near Salisbury have already called it off, citing financial issues caused by Covid-19. It said it hoped to return in 2023.

Another big Wiltshire Festival, End of the Road, will be going ahead in September.

The Gloucester Tall Ships Festival, which brings thousands of people to the docks in the city centre, will be held again this summer, over the Queen's Platinum Jubilee Weekend from 3-5 June.

On the same weekend, the Wychwood Festival, headlined by Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Deacon Blue, will be taking place at Cheltenham Racecourse.

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