Folk music is booming — so why are Britain’s folk festivals struggling?

The genre is reaching more audiences than ever but two historic events are facing cancellation and scores of others are fighting to stay afloat

On an August evening in the idyllic grounds of a country estate on the border of Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, a rising star of folk music, Katherine Priddy, will perform her set at the Towersey village festival. It is the event’s 60th edition and also its last.

Up to 10,000 people attend each year. But after suffering heavy losses since entertainment re-emerged from lockdowns, the Heap family, who run Towersey, have bowed to economic reality. Their festival is among the latest casualties in a crisis threatening the future of gatherings that have been a fixture of the British summer since the Fifties.

“It’s devastating to see Towersey close,” says Priddy, 29. “Ticket-buying habits have not returned to what they were pre-Covid, but this is a wonderful festival in so many ways and its loss is awful for those who have been going for years.”

Thirty miles away, the village of Cropredy in Oxfordshire is the venue for another endangered festival, also in August, the annual reunion of past and present members of the celebrated folk-rock band Fairport Convention.

Towersey and Cropredy are not alone in facing bleak times. The Association of Independent Festivals says more than 40 UK events have been postponed, cancelled or lost altogether this year. Faced with a surge in operating costs, at least 170 have disappeared in five years.

Eliza Carthy, a singer and fiddler and president of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, was shocked to learn of Towersey’s closure. “I feel it personally because it was the first festival to give me a solo gig, more than 30 years ago,” she says. “I was absolutely terrified but ended up loving every minute.”

Terry Donahue, Dave Pegg, Dave Mattacks, Dave Swarbrick and Trevor Lucas of Fairport Convention performing in the garden of The Brasenose Arms in Cropredy on July 22, 1973. This event became the precursor for the annual Cropredy Festival

BRIAN COOKE/REDFERNS

Carthy, a member of Britain’s pre-eminent folk dynasty as the daughter of Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson, believes folk music is at a crossroads, events folding despite large, loyal followings, while, paradoxically, some observers see a resurgence driven by inventive young musicians pushing at old barriers and embracing other genres.

Despite the disapproval of purists, folk has always rubbed shoulders with more popular styles. The first of a succession of so-called folk revivals sprang from the Fifties skiffle craze. It was nurtured first by the protest movement led from across the Atlantic by Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, then when folk rock was made fashionable by the Byrds in America and Fairport and Steeleye Span in Britain.

Around the UK, folk clubs proliferated in smoke-filled pub rooms with a blend of charismatic professionals — Billy Connolly, Jasper Carrott and Christy Moore cut their teeth on the folk scene — and “floor singers” drawn from the audience. The better clubs survived, but after a golden age in the Sixties, when at least one could be found in even small towns, many ceased to exist.

A visual art performer at Sidmouth’s folk festival, where artists including Kate Rusby gained prominence

SID BOND

Yet the music refused to die and a thriving festival circuit, from the earliest (and still functioning) event in Sidmouth, Devon, developed. Young talent such as Kate Rusby and Kathryn Roberts gained prominence, and academic endorsement came with the launch of a folk and traditional music degree course at Newcastle University, with other campuses following.

Today country music, folk’s close cousin, is enjoying a boom. Joe Heap, co-director of Towersey, says that along with Americana and US roots it is the fastest-growing genre, one he is keen to promote. So why, given its open-minded booking policy, can’t festivals like his prosper?

“Quite simply, rising costs have decimated our budgets,” he says, pointing to losses of £150,000, a burden borne by him and his sisters Mary and Kathy. “From pre-Covid to now, our production budget has doubled. Brexit has had an impact too, on supplies and its effect on the economy. But you cannot double ticket prices in a cost of living crisis.

“We have typically run on past surplus but that has been wiped out. We exist hand-to-mouth with no commercial sponsorship to fall back on.”

Heap dismisses talk of folk being on its knees. “People have always said that. And there’s always been this stigma about ageing audiences, but audiences keep coming, reinventing themselves, as 40-year-olds find they like music they wouldn’t listen to at 20.”

Simon Nicol, a Fairport founding member, shares Heap’s concerns. Cropredy, too, has to pay its way without big backers. Its licence permits 20,000 people on site, including artists, staff and support, but seldom sells out.

He has urged fans to spread the word about the festival and bring along friends or relatives to offset escalating costs, from infrastructure and performers’ fees to lighting and sound. “The fact is there can never be a ‘bad year’ for Cropredy — anything which isn’t self-supporting could mean the end of the line,” he wrote.

Nicol points to changes in how younger people access music. “They don’t have our background of getting away from school or uni for the fabulous alternative environment of a festival. Theirs is a different world of entertainment on a little screen they switch on and off, maybe going to a jumbo event like a Taylor Swift concert at monster prices.”

Another festival, organised in South Yorkshire by Kate Rusby’s family and named after her best-known song, Underneath the Stars, has also joined the rash of closures. Citing the “challenging festival landscape” as being among the factors, this year’s edition, held August 2-4, will be the last.

Source: Folk music is booming — so why are Britain’s folk festivals struggling?