August downpours leads to folk festival cancellation

The unpredictable summer weather has meant that this weekend’s Pickering Folk Festival has had to be cancelled at the last minute after a site inspection revealed the site covered in standing water. The festival’s website states It is raining now and more heavy rain is forecast over the next three days so the event has been cancelled in the interests of public safety” The event was hoping to be the first festival of its kind to be held in the parkland at the Pickering Showground and the Northern Events Arena in Pickering, North Yorkshire running from today, Friday 8th to Sunday 10th August. It joins the Sunrise Celebration which was due to run from the 29th May to 31st June which was cancelled, again to extensive flooding and health and safety concerns, although Sunrise was reborn when the Big Chill  offered to host sunrise at the Big Chill gathering between the 1st and 3rd August at Eastnor Castle Deer Park, Eastnor, Herefordshire, so Sunrise ticket holders got free access to The Big Chill festival held over the same weekend in a field next door. At the end of December, in the middle of the Australian summer, the Peats Ridge festival, a winner of the international Greener Festival Award in 2007,  was forced to cancel after prolonged and unseasonal rainfall led to site waterlogging and flooding. In 2007, during which large areas of England experienced unprecedented flooding, the Truck Festival was cancelled after severe weather, and The Glade, Glastonbury and T-in-thePark all suffered from heavy rain along with many Northern European Festivals.