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More cancelled festivals, this time over health and safety (officially at least)
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 1 June 2012
A punk festival due to take place in Bath this weekend alongside the Jubilee celebrations has been cancelled at the last minute because of a disagreement with the local council. The festival, called The Last Jubilee and operating under the strapline “a celebration of the true spirit of 77”, wasn’t an anti-Jubilee event as such, though it did heavily allude to the Sex Pistols’ anti-monarchy track ‘God Save The Queen’, famously released, of course, during the silver jubilee celebrations of 1977.
Bath Council say they had health and safety concerns with the three day event, while the venue due to host the festival, Bath Racecourse, said in a statement: “Unfortunately, the organisers have failed to fulfil their contractual obligations and the racecourse has taken the difficult decision to withdraw the use of the venue due to breach of contract and health and safety concerns”.
However, said organisers claim that certain council officials never wanted the event to go ahead, and deliberately raised “minor” health and safety issues right at the last minute, when it was too late for promoter to act. You can read the organisers full statement here.
Elsewhere in cancelled festivals news, an event called the Crystal Palace Garden Party due to take place in South London from 23-24 Jun, with Rick Wakeman, Hawkwind and Focus booked to play, has been pulled, also due to health and safety issues (though undisputed ones). The event planned to use the Crystal Palace Bowl space in Crystal Palace Park, but have discovered that the stage there is in much worse condition that originally believed.
A statement from the event’s organisers said: “There was some obvious weather wear to the stage and the temporary boards that were put down some time ago… However, on closer examination it seemed there might be a more serious problem. A surveyor was called and rotten joists checked etc it was discovered the dilapidation was much worse than was at first thought. It couldn’t be guaranteed to be fixed in the time available so it was felt the safest thing to do all round was to cancel the event and hopefully try again next year”.
UPDATE 1 Jun 12.05pm: Bath & North East Somerset Council has issued a statement denying any involvement in the cancellation of The Last Jubilee:
“Bath & North East Somerset Council has not issued a cancellation notice for the event – no such thing exists in law. The decision to cancel the event is entirely that of Northern Racing who has done so as a result of the organisers failing to meet contractual obligations – it is the deadlines of Northern Racing that the organisers have been working to, not the Council’s.”
See the full statement in the comments below.
