Essential festival cancelled

As the music industry returns from their extended weekends at T in the Park, or a very crowded Brighton beach, we discover that the London edition of the Essential Festival at Hackney Marshes has been officially cancelled. Scheduled for the first weekend in August with Zero 7, DJ Shadow and Morcheeba amongst the line up, Essential Entertainments are blaming problems at their Bristol event earlier in the year and the state of the Marshes after the Mardi Gras festival last week. In an official statement they said: “Essential have made this very difficult decision after considering a number of issues in the build up to the event. The disastrous Rock Day at Bristol’s Essential Festival [where key performances were cancelled] has created significant financial difficulties for the event, which have not been able to be sufficiently resolved. In addition to this, the site suffered considerable damage after the adverse weather conditions that Mardi Gras had to face last weekend, with the result that Essential are not wholly confident that the location would be suitable for hosting the festival. This year has also seen a substantial slump in the market for outdoor events, with the notable exceptions of Glastonbury and Oasis, with many of the major events being subject to low attendance.”