The ‘Glade – Arts and Electronic Music festival’ has been forced to cancel this year’s festival, due to take place July 15th – 18th 2010.
The organisers have released this statement on their website:
“With great sadness we have been forced to cancel the Glade Festival 2010…
As many Glade fans will know over the years we have fought hard to maintain the integrity of the event against steadily increasing restrictions imposed by local authority and police. The resulting compromises have led to increased costs, increased ticket prices and a throttling of the very essence of what we wanted to do…
Faced with what is already an expensive event to put on and with these unexpected forced increases in security and police costs as well as a level of advanced ticket sales that is below our expectations we have no choice but to do the responsible thing and cancel the event.”
Ticket holders are advised to go back to their original ticket outlet and seek a refund for this year’s event.
As an independent, sponsorship free event, ‘Glade’ and its supporters have been dealt a low blow at the hands of the local authority and policing.
Just days before this announcement from the organisers, The ‘Association of Independent Festivals’ announced it was urgently calling on Britain’s top police organisation to review the way it charges festivals and other music events after a severe increase in costs over the past few years, does this mean this is just the first festival to fall in 2010?
Is it right that the police should have this level of power over independent events such as this, or should we be thankful that the authorities have our safety, and the local residents surrounding the festival’s well being in mind?
… So who killed Glade festival 2010? Well… the clear conclusion here is that it was: the police, in a field, with a spanner!