While it may have been a quiet year for the Festival publicly, I’m not sure the Festival team has ever worked so hard. It turns out that cancelling a Festival is a lot more difficult and time consuming than you might imagine!
It is now time to put 2020 behind us and start considering what the future might hold. We’ve been so fortunate to receive the financial support of so many, which means we can now look to 2021. It’s fair to say that the “sands keep shifting”, and that each new revision of “Covid rules” makes us all think again. The Arts have been particularly hard hit during this Pandemic, and at the moment there seems no definite plan for the future.
This is perhaps why we find ourselves as a Festival considering Plans A, B, C, D and beyond. In each case we’re making detailed plans for a version of the future that we don’t yet know. Will there be a miracle return to normal? Will we carry on in this “new-normal” that we’re now living in? Will it all be worse and back to a National lock down?
The short answer is that nobody knows. The Festival team are all considering the possible impact of these, and other, scenarios. It seems increasingly likely that we will have to be a socially-distanced 2021 Festival at best. We will all perhaps by then be used to wearing face masks to concerts.
2021 will therefore likely be a Festival like no other. There will be changes, and differences, but this should be something to embrace. We will have music to listen to in different venues, concerts may well be different without intervals etc. but a return to the thrill and enjoyment of live music has to be something that we all hang on to, even if we end up using Plans X, Y and Z…
Donate to the Festival
The financial implications of having to cancel the 2020 Festival in order to safeguard the health of our audiences, artists and staff due to the coronavirus pandemic, are huge. We can’t wait to get back to what we do best, bringing the best world-class music to Newbury as soon as we are able. But to do this we need your support.
So, we are asking you, and everyone we know, to make a donation to help us survive this extraordinary situation so that we can return next year with two weeks of world-class music.
If you are able, we would be delighted if you might make a one-off donation to support the future of the Newbury Spring Festival.