HAMPSHIRE'S biggest music festival has been cancelled. Boomtown 2020 will no longer be taking place in August due to the coronavirus crisis.

The next event will be between August 11 and 15 in 2021. It is still expected to run at Matterley Bowl just outside Winchester.

A spokesperson said: "We hope everyone is doing as well as humanly possible right now, sending so much love and solidarity to everyone, wherever in the world you may be.

"As with all of our colleagues in the festival world, we have been keeping a close eye on the expert advice coming in from across the globe; as well as speaking with the local agencies and key workers whose vital services we engage to support the safe running of our event, in order to help us make a decision on what August may look like through the lens of COVID-19.

"After taking all the information and projections into consideration, along with the timelines and the current pressures on the emergency services, we’re now able to confirm that Boomtown 2020 will no longer go ahead.

"Speaking on behalf of nearly 50 of us working all year round on this show, we are truly heartbroken by this entire situation and all the multi-layered knock-on effects it will have. But with such a complex production and many many 1000’s of staff to mobilise, we are certain this is the right thing to do and confident we've made the decision at the right time."

This is the first time in 12 years that the festival has not been held.

The spokesperson added: "The next few steps of this journey we’re really not looking forward to and are impossibly hard. Actively pausing the company we’ve spent 12 years building up and having to temporarily say goodbye to people we’ve worked with for the best part of a decade, is absolutely not what we had in mind as we move into May.

"What we did have planned, with all the new shows, areas and creative concepts was building up to be the best edition yet! But unfortunately, like many others across the world, we will now wind down in preparation for a forced fallow year. But thankfully there is a silver lining to all this and we will be using this gifted time to fully reflect, learn and reimagine our vision, for the first time in 12 years, to guarantee the next chapter will be more spectacular than ever before.

"Please stay safe, be kind to yourselves, take this time to look after you and your loved ones, clap with your neighbours in awe and solidarity of the NHS and all key and essential workers, savour this chance to reconnect, whatever form that may take. These are very hard times, but the lights of humanity are shining brightly, and for that, we must all be so proud."