A popular experimental dance music festival will go ahead as planned so long as government advice on coronavirus does not change.
Houghton Festival expects to return to West Norfolk for its third year this August, from the 6th until the 9th, despite concerns over the spread of coronavirus.
The festival was cancelled at the last minute in 2019 due to sudden weather changes, with festival organisers promising this year’s edition would return “with an even greater sense of purpose”.
However organisers became concerned as they watched Covid-19 continue to spread throughout the country and as other music festivals including Glastonbury, the UK’s largest, had to be cancelled.
READ MORE: Houghton Festival explains safety reasoning behind “heartbreaking” last minute cancellation
But a festival spokesman says they are “hopeful and optimistic” that the festival, which expected nearly 10,000 people to attend in 2019, will still go ahead.
“Despite the uncertainty of these sad and peculiar times, we remain hopeful and optimistic that Houghton will take place in August,” a spokesman said.
“We are monitoring official government advice and all decisions will be taken with the utmost of respect for human safety.
“In the meantime we wish those who are ill a full recovery and to everyone else in isolation a productive and domestically successful time ahead. Love and strength from all of us at Houghton.”
It is believed that the peak of Covid-19 cases will come in the next few weeks, and that the spread of the virus may slow down during the summer.
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This year the event invites world class DJs, performers and soundsystems from across the globe to perform at Houghton Hall and it surrounding gardens, including Ben UFO, Ricardo Villalobos, Four Tet, Helena Hauff and more.
It will be the third edition of the festival, which was founded in 2017 by DJ Craig Richards, and promises four days of non-stop electronic music.
The festival is not alone in hoping that it will be able to continue, as in March organisers of the Boomtown Fair festival, held near Winchester, said it was “very unlikely” they would cancel the event.
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