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Cropredy festival slimming down to survive
03/12/2024
The band say they are just about on safe ground to plan next year’s event
Ticket sales for next summer’s Fairport Cropredy Festival will be limited to 6,500, as organisers say they are having to “scale back, simplify and slim down” to enable the festival to continue.
Over the last two summers spiralling costs and dwindling audiences have led to over one hundred similar events being cancelled, failing or announcing this was their last. Fairport’s band members said they had been nervous about whether this August’s festival would work out financially and thanked those festival-goers who attended and persuaded others to do so.
The band said: “We’re (just) on safe ground to plan next year in some detail: although the war chest has never looked so bare before. We have reserved what we need to keep the basic infrastructure in place and to pay deposits to our suppliers and the farmers whose fields we enjoy, but in common with all the other independent Festivals in the UK, we face a new and challenging future.
“The entire landscape has changed with the Big Boys of the industry making their own rules. The major agents now tie their acts into ‘exclusivity’ deals and will no longer even take calls from minnows like us.”
The Cropredy Festival has always been limited by licencing laws to 20,000 people in attendance, but this includes the artists and people behind the scenes keeping the site operating, in addition to festival goers. The site infrastructure has to be provided for that number, even if far less actually attend.
The band hope reducing the size of the event will help it survive. They said: “If this new model works, then we can rebuild and hopefully begin to grow again, but the model which has worked up to now is no longer supportable.”
For 2025 the only ticket option available will be for all three days at a cost of £220.00, or £90 for teenagers. Children under 12 remain free. Camping will be £60 per vehicle and parking for those not camping £15 for 3 days.
Fairport have described the move not as downsizing, but “right-sizing” and suggest the only difference for festival goers will be the need to book early to be sure of getting a ticket.
Published: by Banbury FM Newsteam