Towersey has sent the following personal message concerning the cancellation of this year’s Pint-Sized Towersey which was due to take place from 27-30 August 2021:
Just 2 weeks ago we told you about some of our concerns around running this year. And 2 weeks is a long time in this pandemic and in these changing times as you all know.
It breaks our hearts, as I know it will so many of you, to announce today that once again we are going to have to cancel Towersey Festival.
With just 1 month to go, we have had to make the hardest of decisions. Harder than last year in so many ways, particularly as we know how close we have come to making it possible and how hard the last few months and weeks have been for us all in the office. We have worked our socks off to try and make it happen but as a small independent festival, we cannot continue to take the risks we have been fearing all year.
Many other festivals cancelled weeks ago……some are still going ahead as it stands but things are changing daily. Each event has its own reasons for making those choices and in hindsight, we probably should have called it a month or so ago, but we so desperately wanted to try and make it work that we carried on working through our concerns.
For 2 or 3 months we have woken up early every day feeling different…….shall we carry on? Shall we cancel? Shall we just go back to sleep? We have talked with all our key staff and advisors and asked for views from the events industry, from friends, from medical professionals and more…
In the end, there is no right decision, but a decision had to be made and we called it last week when the COVID numbers were rocketing, which we felt was only going to go one way! Yes, they have started to drop a bit but could easily shoot back up again in a few weeks’ time and the knock-on effects of those rises over the last month have caused so many of the problems that we felt we simply couldn’t continue.
Towersey is very small and fiercely independent with no investors, no backers, no underwriters….it just has us and you and we cannot risk losing this special event for the sake of trying to do something with so many unknowns this year.
In these last few weeks of planning, we have lost key staff and volunteers who couldn’t make it or didn’t feel ready to be back at an event.
We have lost caterers and traders who are missing another year because so many of their regular events have cancelled. Key staff and suppliers have been “Pinged” or come down with the virus.
We have had artists drop out, lost all of our crew accommodation, lost our water infrastructure suppliers and are working at Claydon for the first time and are learning new things about the site all the time……Of course, we deal with many issues year on year but this time around it has been magnified by a very short planning cycle (just 3 or 4 months as opposed to the usual 12 to 14) and by the increasing pressures of COVID on the supply chain and our planning.
NOW is the time that we have to start laying out large sums in upfront payments. And with no insurance these, should the worse happen over the next 4 weeks, it would bankrupt the festival.
NOW is the time we have to make final Health & Safety plans with the local authority, plans around how we deal with the potentially increasing levels of COVID, new variants and outbreaks at the event.
NOW is the time we have to decide if what we can deliver will be anything close to what Towersey needs to be to make sure we are not under-delivering on our promises to you and the promises to ourselves that Towersey will always punch above its weight.
And NOW is the time to think about your health and safety, our health and the long-term health of this precious event of ours.
All of these things may still be with us in August 2022, but the world will have had another full 12 months to get to understand how we live with it, plan for it and deal with it and we will (hopefully) all have been back in the new normal a little longer.
So, in the end, we had to weigh up what was best for the long-term future of the event, yours and our health, the health of the artists and stage crews and the festivals financial security and reputation.
Yes, cancelling puts a HUGE financial strain on the organisation but not as big as being forced to cancel just before the event.
We know how much this will affect so many of you, so please do hear me when we say we have not taken this decision lightly.
That’s the why.
But how do we move forward together?
How can you help the festival and how can we help you re-build your summer?
Well first up we are refunding tickets for those that have them.
Secondly, if you are in a position to, or feel you want to support the festival’s future by donating you can do this through our Crowdfunder: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/pint-sized-towersey-festival
Secondly, we are now busy planning things for the August weekend this year. Towersey will be marked in some way that we haven’t quite worked out just yet. Watch your emails and social for updates as we have them.
Finally, we will soon have some wonderful souvenir T’s and Hoodies to mark another missed year for those that need their Towersey merch fix for the collection.