Standon Calling has confirmed it will go ahead as a full-capacity festival next month, while adding more acts to this year’s line-up.
The Hertfordshire event, due to take place between July 22-July 25, will be headlined by Bastille, Hot Chip and Primal Scream. Back in March, organisers also announced the likes of Craig David, De La Soul, Mystery Jets, Squid and Everything Everything.
Earlier this month, however, a four-week delay to the removal of all remaining COVID restrictions in England (now scheduled for July 19) resulted in the cancellation of the likes of Truck Festival, Kendal Calling and WOMAD.
The scrapped events cited the lack of government insurance and safety guidance on how to operate post-coronavirus as the reason for pulling the plug. It’s thought that more than half of UK festivals with a minimum 50,000 capacity have now been cancelled this year due to ongoing uncertainty.
Today (June 29), Standon Calling organisers have announced that the 2021 event will take place as planned this summer.
“To be able to confirm that Standon Calling 2021 will be taking place this year is something that brings me incredible joy,” said Alex Trenchard, Founder and Festival Director.
“We are incredibly grateful to our staff, artists and suppliers who have worked tirelessly with us to get to this point.”
Trenchard continued: “The Government’s impressive vaccination record, the Event Research Programme Data published at the end of last week (which showed there were no substantial outbreaks at phase one of the test events) and yesterday’s comments made by the new Secretary of State for Health & Social Care that July 19th will be the “end of the line” for Covid restrictions have encouraged us to go for it.
“For the past four months we have been working with colleagues at Certific (a leading COVID testing verification app) and Imperial College London in the development of a Covid transmission risk assessment system that has been positively received by our Local Public Health Authority. We are looking forward to sharing full details with ticket holders over the coming weeks and are confident that it will help keep everyone safe.”
The statement went on to thank the “Standon Calling family who have stuck with us and supported the festival through this time, this year’s festival is in honour of you”.
