Organiser Geoff Ellis hints at end for T in the Park

Any replacement camping event would be ‘very different’ says festival boss

Festival guru Geoff Ellis has dropped the strongest hint yet that T in the Park may never return.

The DF Concerts boss, who launched the festival in 1994, said any replacement camping event would be “very different”.

In an interview with an events industry magazine, Mr Ellis suggested it may be at least two years before any decision is made on a new show, which would likely be aimed at an older audience.

On Friday, Mr Ellis’s Glasgow-based TRNSMTfestival—heldonthetraditional T in the Park weekend in July — was named best new event at the UK Festival Awards in London.

Last month, it was announced that TRNSMT will return in 2018, spread across two weekends.

However, DF Concerts has so far kept tight-lipped about T in the Park’s future.

The long-running festival was shelved after two problematic years at its new home at Strathallan Castle.

Speaking to Events Base magazine, Mr Ellis said: “I think what we come back with will be something very different.

“If you take two years out of the market and you go back in, you probably want to refresh everything.

“That’s not to say we won’t be back with a camping festival – at some point we will be back with a camping festival – but we’re not jumping up and down to do it in 2018.”

He said: “Whatever we do in the future, I think we will probably aim it at an older market as well.

“With the last three or four years of T in the Park, we were seeing people not coming back year-on-year, whereas people did the surveys and said: ‘Yeah I had a great time, I can’t wait to be back next year.’

“It’s not because they didn’t have a good time, but because they’ve done it, they’ve ticked the box and they want to go somewhere else.”

Mr Ellis added: “As a festival organiser, that’s something you’ve got to learn quickly because it used to be about making sure people had a good time and wanted to come back next year. Now it’s about getting a whole new audience (each time).”

TintheParkwasforcedtomoveoutofits traditional home at Balado, near Kinross,amidhealthandsafetyfearsabout a pipeline running underneath the site.

But the flit to Strathallan Castle was plagued by traffic and anti-social behaviour problems, as well as the cost of protecting nesting ospreys.

“It’s been the most trying time of my professional life,” said Mr Ellis. “I think that’s true of everybody in the company.

On Saturday, The Courier revealed that a new music event was being planned for Scone Palace in May 2018.

Geoff Ellis said he was not planning a T in the Park next year.