Watchet Music Festival is over

Watchet Festival, staged by volunteers at Parsonage Farm, made the announcement on social media explaining how “a proposed future housing development” and “the changing demographic of the town are the key points” behind the decision.

The message published by the festival’s organisers on Facebook said: “It is with sadness that our concerns over the future of Watchet Festival have finally come to fruition.

“Due to circumstances beyond our control, we are unfortunately not able to renew our lease on the land that we use at Parsonage Farm.

A photo from last year's festival (Image: Newsquest)

“The tenant farmer is retiring and vacating the farm, the proposed future housing development on most of the fields and the farm (that is used to stage the festival), along with the changing demographic of the town are the key points.

“Because of this, we feel after much soul searching and debate that it has become apparent that this is the right time to allow Watchet Festival to come to a natural end.

“After 25 years of voluntarily organising events, some of the team feel that it’s the right time for them to retire completely from event planning.

Sell-out success for 2022 Watchet Festival but event taking a break next year

“Other members of Watchet LIVE Community Interest Company will continue for the foreseeable future to present other events in the town including Carnival weekend and Wheelbarrow race.

“After discussions with the land agents on their offer of potentially identifying alternative land on which to possibly relocate the event, we know that taking Watchet Festival out of the town and starting afresh on new land isn’t feasible.

“We experienced some very challenging issues when moving from the harbourside all those years ago, and with the ever-increasing costs, we feel that the ethos of the festival would be sadly lost.

“The event was set up to present three days of live music which was sensibly priced and affordable to all, while more importantly promoting our hometown of Watchet as a diverse, vibrant, and lively place to live and visit.

“We know that this decision will come with very mixed emotions for you all, but it’s an announcement that many of you have been expecting.

“From its modest beginnings on the harbourside in 1997 to the size of the event that it has grown into, Watchet Festival has even exceeded our own wildest dreams and expectations of what we could accomplish.

“We really hope that our exciting journey has inspired others, to show what can be achieved with dedication, hard work, and determination, especially when we had a lot of non-believers and local apathy to contend with in the early years – to these people, we say thank you for giving us the challenge.

“To all our fantastic supporters, we are honoured to have had your loyalty, love, and dedication over the years, and to all the artists and performers we thank you for giving us many almost unachievable challenges which pushed us out of our comfort zone on more than one occasion as the festival evolved.

“We, like you, will have so many wonderful memories of the festival and would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has supported and wholeheartedly believed in us on the long Watchet Festival journey.

“We are very proud and humbled to have been able to organise and present to you all this very precious event that will always be close to our hearts.

“Our thanks and gratitude must go out to every single performer, supplier, booking agent, other festival organisers, clubs, and charities whom we now work closely with.

“And of course, our most marvellous hard working, dedicated, conscientious, absolutely brilliant team of volunteers who made Watchet Festival the event it has grown into; a festival with the biggest heart and a reputation on the event circuit that we thought we’d never ever be able to achieve.

“Please don’t be sad that Watchet Festival is over – please just be happy that it actually happened.”