Bluedot postponed until summer 2022
BLUEDOT festival has been called off for this year - and postponed until summer 2022.
Organisers said they hope the event at Jodrell Bank in Cheshire will go ahead from July 21 to July 24 next year.
Last year’s festival, which was due to be headlined by Bjork, Groove Armada and Metronomy, was postponed until this year due to coronavirus restrictions.
A three-day virtual festival was held instead.
Now organisers said they have had to make the ‘difficult decision’ to postpone the music, art and science festival again.
They said the ‘government has refused to step up’ and provide them with a government-backed insurance scheme.
Organisers also said it would be ‘unacceptable’ to change the layout, line-up or weekend so the ‘only option’ would be to postpone.
In a post on Facebook, the festival team said: “The challenges of putting an event on at this time led us to ask for your feedback recently, and your suggestions and preferences are a large factor in our decision - you are as much part of bluedot as the artists, speakers and performers.
“The responses to our survey suggested clearly that compromises in your weekend such as changing the layout or line-up or moving to a new weekend would have been disappointing and unacceptable.
“We explored these changes to give us the best possible chance to return.
“Following your feedback, it became clear that keeping the same festival on the same weekend would have been the only option that meets the expectations we and you and our partners all share for the festival.
“However, due to a lack of government support around insurance for events such as ours, the risks are too great.
“Despite continuous calls from our industry over the past six months the government have refused to step up and provide us with protection via a government-backed insurance scheme.
“Without such a scheme, which would have provided us with security, the overwhelming risk and high upfront costs for us to hold bluedot this year are sadly just too high.
“As a small independent festival bluedot is left with a simple choice - make unacceptable changes to the weekend and risk the future of the festival or look ahead to 2022 and start the planning now for our greatest event yet.”