POPULAR music festival Down at the Abbey has been postponed, and organisers say they will be back next year.
The event had been due to take place in Reading’s Abbey ruins in September.
In a statement, the Heavy Pop team said that organising three festivals in eight months, during a period of uncertainty caused by the covid pandemic had meant they were “were working on a condensed and accelerated delivery programme that stretched us to our limits”.
The current financial certainty has also been a factor.
The statement said: “This has brought us to realise that in order to protect the long-term sustainability of Heavy Pop as a company and our festival events, Down at the Abbey and Are You Listening?, we now need the summer period to reflect and reset, and get back to our more workable planning cycles for our 2023 events.”
Tickets bought for this year’s event will be rolled over to next year, which is scheduled for the weekend of September 9. Refunds will be available for those who cannot make this date.
“We are a completely independent local event company, and we depend on your continued support. If you can, we kindly ask that you keep your existing tickets,” the statement reads.
It ends: “Sorry to be sharing this disappointing news with you but we look forward to seeing you in the ruins again next September.”
The statement in full:
Dear Down at the Abbey supporters,
The last few years have been incredibly challenging for our small team.
We were extremely happy to be able to deliver Down at the Abbey last September, albeit in very testing circumstances; and to witness the joy from the audience returning to us gave us tremendous satisfaction.
As a result of pandemic related rescheduling, Heavy Pop have now produced three festivals in just the past eight-month period. Not only were we working on a condensed and accelerated delivery programme that stretched us to our limits, but it was also a highly uncertain period.
This, combined with the current cost of living crisis, has brought us to realise that in order to protect the long-term sustainability of Heavy Pop as a company and our festival events, Down at the Abbey and Are You Listening?, we now need the summer period to reflect and reset, and get back to our more workable planning cycles for our 2023 events.
Down at the Abbey 2022 will no longer be going ahead as a result; our staff and partners have fully supported this decision for the long-term outlook. We hope you will too.
We are a completely independent local event company, and we depend on your continued support. If you can, we kindly ask that you keep your existing tickets, which will be automatically rolled over for Down at the Abbey 2023 taking place on the weekend of Sep 9th, 2023.
If you are not able to do this, we fully understand, and you are entitled to receive a full face-value refund for your tickets. Gigantic, our ticket partners will contact all ticket holders shortly and they will process any refund requests. For those wishing to keep their tickets and join us at next year’s festival, no further action is required.
For festival updates, please keep an eye on our socials @DownAtTheAbbey
Sorry to be sharing this disappointing news with you but we look forward to seeing you in the ruins again next September
