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Hevy Fest cancelled and retired

By | Published on Wednesday 13 April 2016

Hevy Fest

The organisers of Hevy Fest have announced that they are “pulling the plug” on the event permanently after the venture became “financially untenable”.

This year’s festival was due to take place at a new site in Newhaven, Derbyshire. It had previously been staged at Port Lympne Wild Animal Park in Kent, but was forced to move due to construction work at the site. Previously the event said that the new central UK location had been chosen “in response to fan feedback”.

Much of the line-up for this year’s event, due to take place in August, had been announced, including a headline slot from Enter Shikari. The most recent line-up announcement was less than two weeks ago, adding Saves The Day, Sick Of It All and Mewithoutyou, among others.

In a statement, organisers said: “Hevy Fest is no more. After six years of incredible bands, legendary hangs, and a lot of monkeys – we’re sorry to announce that Hevy Fest is pulling the plug. Despite the best efforts of our dedicated team, the festival has become financially untenable”.

“Many things have contributed [to the decision]”, they continued. “Port Lympne being unable to continue hosting the event, the increasingly difficult task of putting together a line-up with more and more exclusives enforced each year leading to difficulties confirming our final headliner, and the pressure to offer good value with spiralling costs. The odds are stacked against anyone taking on the challenge, and they have proven too great for us to overcome”.

They added that they “hope that other small festivals will be able to grow into this space, and to deliver the event we aspired to”.

Hevy Fest launched in 2009 in Folkestone, headlined by Feeder, Gary Numan and Ash. The following year it moved to Port Lympne, where it stayed until last year’s festival, which was headlined by Coheed & Cambria and Thrice.

All tickets for this year’s now cancelled event are expected to be refunded within the next ten days.



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