Director ‘very proud’ of team behind event
This year’s Petworth Festival proved a ‘complete delight’, says artistic director Stewart Collins.
From July 14 to 18 the festival operated at 50 per cent capacity, thereafter at 75 per cent capacity until the end.
And though, like last year, this year will make a ‘moderate loss’, Stewart is thrilled at the quality of the events and at the great atmosphere which enveloped them all.
“I can’t say that I would ever want to repeat a year like this, but the actual events we had and the extraordinary atmosphere that we had were just fantastic.
“We had so many people who for the first time in many months were sitting in a fairly crowded room and they loved what they were seeing and hearing, and the comments from the musicians were the same, for many their first chance to perform in months and months in front of a live audience. We had about three comments from people who felt at some point uncomfortable about something, but otherwise the comments were that we had managed it all extremely well.
“We did go up to 75 per cent and most of the events were sold out, but there was always a feeling of space. The church was very well ventilated and there is new air-conditioning at Leconfield Hall and half a dozen of our events were outdoors so we actually found that there was very little Covid anxiety.
“Seventy-five per cent was a self-imposed limit. We could have gone up to 100 per cent but we felt early on that because the festival was so soon after the limits being lifted that we were pretty confident that our audiences would still like a bit of reassurance. We did also ask people to wear masks when they were moving around and they were happy with that.
“I am very very proud of what we did. On the last night there was a feeling that even if this had been a normal year this would have been a very very good festival in terms of the events we had, but in the circumstances we also had the sheer joy of getting back to it and our audiences coming back, seeing them again after such a long time. We have an incredibly loyal audience and we see people time and time and time again. We have had an endless catalogue of thanks and praise. It is very touching and very gratifying.
“It has not been easy. There were lots of decision we had to take. I am very proud of the team. We had a lot of big decisions early on and we were able to stick with them because they were the right decisions.”