BOOMTOWN Fair 2021 has been cancelled, devastated organisers have revealed.

The event was scheduled to run from August 11 to August 15, but will now take place in 2022 instead.

Organisers said: "We have been doing everything within our power to try to find a solution to the mind-boggling conundrum of putting on a safe and well-run event to the sheer scale, complexity and intricate nature of Boomtown this summer.

"However, the time has simply run out for us to be able to proceed in a way that would live up to our high safety and production standards for the large-scale event we had planned.

"Crucially, with less than four months to go and after almost half a year of collective campaigning to the government, Covid specific cancellation insurance for events simply does not exist at this point in time and therefore there's no safety net to support.

"This means we would be gambling up to an eight-figure loss should the event not be able to go ahead due to Covid restrictions, which would put the future of the festival at serious risk."

Boomtown says tickets for 2021 will automatically roll over to the 2022 event.

Steve Brine, Winchester's MP said; “I was sorry to see this announcement but not surprised. It’s a blow to the local economy and the many organisations who receive money via the Boomtown Community Fund but it’s also a blow to, yet another, event where young people especially might just have had some fun this Summer. We on the DCMS Select Committee warned that without a state backed insurance solution many live events – especially festivals – would struggle to make it this year and so it has proved.

“More generally, I would argue that Boomtown are victims of our seeming refusal to believe in vaccines and live with covid as an endemic disease now we’ve vaccinated those most at risk from Covid. That is the real tragedy here and it will have much wider ramifications than Summer festivals.”