According to the BBC, just this year, 42 festivals have announced their postponement or cancellation of the festival as they do not have the funds or budget to successfully put on the show that audiences are desiring. Much loved festivals such as Body and Soul, Towersey festival and Wild Roots are being forced to postpone their festivals, or cancel them indefinitely.

The organisers of Towersey festival, after sixty years of running a welcoming, adored festival, announced that due to “economic challenges”, this year’s festival will be their last, stating that “the pandemic wiped all our back up and changed the face of festivals across the industry”, leaving many excited locals in dismay that their annual favourite festival will not be returning for 2025.

The costs for putting on a festival have increased immensely, reflected through ticket prices rocketing, as Glastonbury festival have increased their ticket price by £75 within the past two years. Organiser of the Stendhal Festival in Northern Ireland, Ross Parkhill, told the BBC that “everything has gone up in recent years across the board, everything from insurance costs, artist fees to affording fuel for generators”, especially as around 25% of a festival budget immediately goes to artist fees, and sometimes, this does not include accommodation and travel, wiping a huge part of their budget alongside potentially impacting artists financially.

The Association of Independent Festivals (AIF) stated that this year, festival goers can expect 100 more festivals to be either postponed or cancelled indefinitely. John Rostron, AIF’s CEO, wants to “again sound the alarm to Government” as the nation is “witnessing the erosion of one of our most successful and unique cultural industry sectors”.

In a candid and forthcoming interview with GQ, Barnett revealed how close she came to losing her home after having to cancel all of her upcoming shows whilst not being able to claim the Governments small business loans “I came really close, and it made me pay attention and learn a lot about things that I never really paid attention to before, because I’ve always been on the go“. She had a lot of people to pay in her team, and continued doing so despite said losses, but as time went by and her balance ran lower, it became increasingly hard to find a solution in a world turned upside down by the pandemic.

With the ban on live music taking out a huge chunk of her earnings, she felt the pinch of agreements she had signed up to earlier in her career when she was less aware of the small prints repercussions. Learning from it all now, it’s served as a sharp wake up call to the singer who is now placing more emphasis on her business practice and personal sovereignty in an industry that often seeks to take it away.

Speaking with GQ‘s Briana Younger in a typically thoughtful and open manner, she said “It has been intimidating for me being a young woman running a business because I felt like I didn’t deserve to understand everything. I felt like I didn’t deserve to understand the contracts – or even, sometimes now, when you do a song, there’s royalties, publishing, there’s points, there’s who gets paid first”. 

Now she feels like she’s matured and gained enough experience of the industry to deserve a seat at the table and be at the helm of the decision making of her business “I’m learning, and I want to make my own mistakes. I don’t want other people to make mistakes and then me not understand what’s happened… I think it’s important for specifically young women in a creative industry to have the confidence to understand their business and have the confidence to understand their worth and have the confidence to want more for themselves”.

You can check out FKA Twigs latest single “Killer” here:

The lack of new restrictions was in part due to the pressure from the hospitality industry to let venues and nightclubs remain open on New Year’s Eve, with Michael Kill, the Chief Executive of the Night-Time Industries Association (NTIA) writing an open letter to Johnson, urging him not to shut down the industry on its typically busiest night.“Let’s not end this year as we did last. End the uncertainty and Let Us Dance on New Year’s Eve,” said the letter, which you can read here.

In the other countries in the UK things are different though as before Christmas, Wales reintroduced its rule of six in pubs, cinemas and restaurants. Large events were also banned, with no more than 30 people allowed at an indoor event and 50 at an outdoor event. The Welsh government also shut down nightclubs and ordered pubs to impose 1-meter social distancing.

Also more recently looking over to Scotland on Boxing Day a limit was imposed on the size of public events including its traditional Hogmanay celebrations. At the moment indoor events are limited to 100 guests standing or 200 seated, with only 500 set to be allowed at outdoor events. Nightclubs were also forced to close from 27 December, while pubs and bars returned to table service only.

However, as there are no travel bans between the countries, some people are expecting there will be an “invasion” of Scottish and Welsh Partygoers. Some reports also suggest hotels in English border towns like Chester, Bristol, Carlisle and Newcastle are already fully booked on New Year’s Eve.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Scotland’s Deputy First Minister John Swinney said that crossing the English border would go against the “spirit” of the restrictions, and he would “discourage” anyone from doing so. “I think it is the wrong course of action for people to take because we have a serious situation we have got to manage and we encourage everybody to play their part in addressing that,”

Nick Newman, the chair of the Cardiff Licensees Forum, told The Guardian that there is probably a likelihood of a large number of revelers going from Wales to England so as to avoid the restrictions. He said “It’s 40 minutes from Newport to Bristol and it’s easy to get from North Wales into Manchester or Liverpool, English businesses are going to benefit. We’re hugely disappointed with the stance the Welsh government is taking, especially not presenting the evidence that links the virus to the hospitality industry.”

In addition to this, it would seem like some experts feel the restrictions won’t even help much anyway. University of Brighton virologist, Dr. Sarah Pitt, said the opposing measures across the nations did not make sense and would be unlikely to stop the virus from spreading.

The band came to the attention of the music world in 2010 with lead Dave Bayley (singer, songwriter and producer) and childhood friends, Drew MacFarlane, Joe Seaward and Ed Irwin-Singer. Bayley is the writer and producer of the band’s albums Zaba, How to be a Human Being and Dreamland.

The band’s new single entered the UK Official Singles Charts at number 18 following interest via Tiktok. Bayley said, “The new single is intended to provide a musical release from the pressure cooker of a global pandemic”. The band expressed that it is overwhelming to release new music during the Covid 19 Pandemic. The video for the single was directed by Drew Kirsch who co-directed Taylor Swift’s video for her single “Me”.

Bayley described the Covid 19 Lockdown as us all being in a pressure cooker unable to let out the steam. Bayley further stated that the new single details this and said “That’s what this track is about – that pressure cooker exposing and expanding so many cracks, but struggling to fill them in and decompress”

this vid was SO much fun to make. playing the new track to strangers and seeing their dance moves. hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it!
big love to everyone involved https://t.co/AB9TnVxn4x
XXXX pic.twitter.com/HPdXyxUeG5

— Glass Animals (@GlassAnimals) September 11, 2021

 

Listen to Glass Animals Album Dreamland here

The band are set to perform during their UK tour due to kick off on November 8th

See Tour Dates for the Glass Animals UK Tour below and tickets are available here

08/11/21 Barrowlands- Glasgow
10/11 O2 Academy- Birmingham
11/11 O2 Victoria Warehouse- Manchester
13/11 Centre- Brighton
14/11 Guildhall- Portsmouth
15/11 Rock City- Nottingham
17/11 O2 Academy- Leeds
18/11 O2 Academy- Bristol
19/11 Alexandra Palace- London
21/11 O2 Academy-Sheffield
22/11 Usher Hall- Edinburgh
24/11 Olympia Theatre- Dublin
25/11 Olympia Theatre- Dublin
26/11 Liverpool Guild of Students- Mountford Hall-Liverpool