Photo: Live4ever Media
Guilfest organiser Tony Scott has said July’s edition will prove to be the last for the festival after over two decades in the business.
2012 will be looked back on as an extremely tough year for UK festivals, with many struggling to sell out and others cancelling their events altogether. And now Guilfest, which this summer was headlined by Ash, Brian Ferry and Olly Murs, and which has played host to the likes of Pulp, Supergrass and Paul Weller over the years, has confirmed it will not return to the festival circuit in the future unless a wealthy benefactor can be found.
“I’d love to see Guilfest keep going, but I think it’s got to be somebody who takes the helm or somebody who would need deeper pockets,” Scott has said.
“There was a lot of competition this year. The Olympics were on, a lot of people were going to that. There was Tom Jones playing up the road at Sandown Park, Bruce Springsteen was playing in London, and there was an awful lot going on around our weekend as well as the bad weather.”
The news comes shortly after Music Festivals Group, the company led by Vince Power which hosts Hop Farm and Benicassim, revealed it is ready to call in the administrators in the wake of heavy financial losses.