Some sad news this week as Sunflowerfest have called it a day.
The local music festival has been running since 2010 and was a real fixture in the music festival calendar. This was meant to be a triumphant return for their 10th anniversary but due to increased costs, slow ticket sales and reduced funding, they are unable to continue.
Unfortunately from the statement it appears that there is no long term future for the festival either. Sad news for bands and artists from across the province as it provided a great opportunity for them to play a festival.
We had some great times at the festival over the years and it a real shame that things have unravelled in this way.
The full statement from the organisers is below:
“We are very sad to tell you that regretfully we have to cancel Sunflowerfest 2022.
Covid hit us hard and we have not been able to properly get back on our feet as a result.
Over the years we have put everything we had into the festival to help it continue and to support our fantastic artistic community and you crazy lovely amazing Sunflowerfestarians and we are very saddened that it has come to an end. We all did our best.
It’s the end of an amazing journey- we gave it our best and have no alternative but to call it quits.
We are very sorry.
Thank you for your support – especially to those of you who have been regular visitors since 2010.
We tried our best to recover from 2 and now into the 3rd year of Covid but unfortunately too many factors have not worked in our favour. Tickets sales are not where they need to be, costs are up, (almost double in some cases) and sponsorship and funding is down too.
We tried our best to continue and support the local arts community and all you amazing and lovely warm hearted Sunflowerfestarians but the numbers just don’t stack up. We hung there for a while to negotiate better prices and see if sales improved but the gap in the budget remained too big for us to continue.
Thank you to all of you who have attended over the years especially those of you who have come back year on year.
What about your tickets?
Much of the money we raised through ticket sales had to be spent on site works and infrastructure 2 years ago to try and stage the postponed festival in 2020. This means that we will be able to refund everyone 80% of the face value their order value; as a Community Interest Company we have done our best and our resources are gone.
What should you do next?
In the next few weeks we will organise an 80% refund of the face value of the tickets onto the card you originally paid with. We understand that some of you paid a long time ago and if your card details have changed, we may need to ask for bank details, so we can return funds this way instead. You do not need to contact us, funds will be returned to you within 3 weeks.
Best wishes from everyone in Sunflowerland.”
