You’ll have had your T: Scotland’s biggest rock festival is cancelled
● Promoters say restrictions placed on the event have been ‘onerous’
Organisers of music festival T in the Park have blamed its forced relocation and “onerous” restrictions for its cancellation next year. Promoters DF Concerts and event sponsors Tennent’s Lager said that the event is having a “year out” to take stock and consider the festival’s future.
Organisers of Scotland’s biggest music festival have blamed its forced relocation over an underground pipeline and a prolonged battle over an osprey’s nest for its cancellation next year.
DF Concerts, the promoters behind T in the Park since its launch in 1994, have confirmed it is “taking a break” days after it emerged it was planning a new three-day event in Glasgow in 2017.
An official announcement said they would be taking a “year out” to take stock over the future of T in the Park – although it made no mentioned of the event said to have been lined up for Glasgow Green next July.
However, the promoters also hit out at the “onerous” restrictions that had been put on T in the Park in recent years, which it said had meant the festival had become unworkable.
A joint statement by DF and event sponsors Tennent’s Lager complained that a “prolonged fight” had been put up to avoid having to move the event from Balado, in Kinross, due to concerns from the Health and Safety Executive.
It then faced a prolonged battle to secure approval for its new site on the Strathallan Estate, in Perthshire, due to concerns over the impact on the environment and wildlife.
The statement read: “T in the Park has become one of the best-known, biggest and mostloved festivals in the world.
“However, the last couple of years have had their challenges. Against our will, and despite a prolonged fight, we were forced to move from Balado. This move was a mammoth task and one that was compounded by a series of onerous site restrictions placed upon us.
“As the build up-to the fes- tival was well under way we were informed we would have to apply for full planning permission due to the presence of an unregistered, but protected in law, osprey’s nest. The constraints – logistically and financially – that the resulting planning conditions put upon us are simply not workable.
“We tried our best to work with the pressures placed upon the site by bringing in an additional team and fixing the first year traffic issues, but ultimately we’re not in control of the overall site layout. Con- tinued restrictions mean the negative impact on our fans and the limitations placed on their experience is too great.”
A spokeswoman for Perth and Kinross Council said: “T in the Park was one of the first major events to recognise the potential the area has as a venue for big events.
“While it is disappointing there won’t be ‘T’ in 2017, we look forward to carrying on our positive relationship with the organisers.”
The announcement that T in the Park will not take place next year is not only sad news for young music fans but a blow for Scotland’s cultural fabric more generally.
Since its launch in 1994, the festival has become a fixture of Scotland’s music scene, helping attract some of the world’s biggest bands to these shores as well as giving a break to fledgling local acts.
But like a group of ageing rockers now just going through the motions, T in the Park has for the past few years begun to look as if it has run out of ideas.
To make matters worse, it has been beset with traffic problems and anti-social behaviour.
Two teenagers died drug-related deaths at this year’s festival, which was also plagued by fights among fans.
At its height, T in the Park attracted 225,000 people over the three-day event, including 70,000 campers.
It was hugely successful when staged at Balado airfield in Kinross, but organisers DF Concerts were forced to move the event due to long-standing concerns from the Health and Safety Executive.
It then faced a lengthy battle to secure planning permission for its new site on the Strathallan Estate due to concerns over the impact on the local environment and wildlife.
The scaled-back event went ahead in 2015 but even then appeared unwieldy and badly organised.
Yesterday DF Concerts said the festival would take a break in 2017 without confirming whether it would return the following year. However, reports at the weekend suggested the company is planning to launch a festival at Glasgow Green next summer.
What is clear, however, is that if T in the Park is to come back, it cannot do so in its current form. A revamped event would need to be smaller and safer.
Much of the anti-social behaviour could be ameliorated simply by following the example of festivals such as Glastonbury, where an eclectic bill leads to a more mixed audience, not one dominated by teenagers away from home for the first time.
Nor should the festival be propped up with public money.
There was controversy last year when it emerged the Scottish Government had secretly given DF Concerts £150,000 of taxpayers’ money to host the event over the next three years.
Yesterday the government said it expected the firm to pay back £50,000 if the 2017 festival does not go ahead.
Scotland needs events like T in the Park but it does not need drug deaths, anti-social behaviour and the other problems with which the festival was increasingly being associated.
There is still a place for T in the Park and many will be bitterly disappointed if it does not come back.
For that to happen, however, organisers need to learn the lessons of the past few years where the event has increasingly looked as if it has run its course.