Readipop Festival Canceled for 2025 Due to Financial Difficulties

The Readipop festival will not proceed in the coming year, its organizers have announced, citing financial pressures. Gavin Lambos, founder of the popular Reading-based event, which raises funds for community projects, stated that 2025 would need to be a “fallow year”. He informed BBC Radio Berkshire that the decision was made with a “heavy heart”. In a statement published on its website, the charity indicated that staging an event of such magnitude with a small team had become “increasingly difficult”. The statement further clarified that the expenses for the 2024 festival were “significantly” higher than Readipop’s income, which has impacted its other charitable activities. It continued: “We tried to keep ticket prices down during a time of financial difficulty for many, but like many other events, we have struggled with the rising costs and other challenges that occurred post Covid.” The statement added: “We’ll be taking time to re-evaluate the structure and inner workings of the festival to make it more effective for everyone involved.” Speaking with radio host Bridgitte Tetteh, Mr. Lombos commented: “It’s a story happening across the country with independent festivals. “Post pandemic it’s taken us a while to recover, but at the same time we’ve seen costs increasing across the board, the infrastructure costs – every item is more expensive, artists’ fees growing and competition from big shows – all those things combined add up to making it really, really difficult.” The festival typically draws up to 5,000 attendees, and Mr. Lombos expressed that the public’s support meant “everything”. He added: “What’s been really heartening is to see so many people talking about it being a musical highlight of the year. “We know we’re disappointing people but we’re hoping, and expecting, this won’t be the end.” Mr. Lombos further stated: “I can’t say anything yet, but we’re going to try out different approaches and depending how they go, how the funding situation looks, it might lead to different ways we can offer a festival experience in and around Reading in 2025 and 2026.” You can follow BBC Berkshire on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram. Copyright 2024 BBC. All rights reserved. The BBC bears no responsibility for the content of external sites. Information regarding our approach to external linking is available.