MPs urge Rishi Sunak to extend insurance schemes to save summer festivals
The crowd at Glastonbury (Yui Mok/PA)
Chancellor Rishi Sunak must act to save summer festivals and live music events or face them disappearing, MPs have warned.
The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee has written to the Chancellor to ask him to extend Government-backed insurance schemes to such events.
MPs cautioned that organisers and investors are unable to risk repeating losses sustained in 2020, unless events can be insured against cancellation and urged the Government to extend the underwriting schemes already offered to the film and television industries.
By: Gideon Gottfried
Chris Gorman/Getty Images
Aerial view of The Boomtown Fair in Winchester, England.The picture was taken, Aug. 8, 2019.
Festival organizers spoke at a June 5 parliamentary hearing of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee in the UK, to explain the dire situation professionals working in this sector will be in, if they weren t given a reopening date soon.
Witnesses included Sacha Lord, co-founder of Parklife festival and The Warehouse Project, and also the night time economy advisor to the mayor of Manchester, and Anna Wade, communications & strategy director at Boomtown Fair.
Lord explained the long turnaround times festivals require to plan ahead. Parklife may only take place in September, but already booked 250-plus artists and suppliers.