Waterlooville Music Festival Committee has evaluated very carefully the feasibility of staging the 2021 Music Festival in the present circumstances of the COVID-19 Pandemic.
The very reasonable ticket prices for festival concerts are achieved by a close balance between income and expenditure, we aim to break even with very little margin; furthermore, whilst performers are paid a fee, the staging, from stewarding, catering/bar, heaving lifting, publicity, ticketing, website – all is through unpaid volunteers, so costs are much lower than any commercial enterprise.
The festival week comes within the UK Government’s “Roadmap out of Lockdown” Step 3. In step 3 the opening of theatres and entertainment venues is permitted, but only subject to compliance with COVID secure guidance, requiring Risk Assessment and ensuring mixing is within social contact limits, which means maximum group of 6 or two households. In practice, achieving that separation could impact on capacity by 50% and would be completely unviable financially. Furthermore significant additional stewarding would be required, as well as additional staffing of the bar to comply with the requirement of table service only. We do not have an additional pool of unpaid volunteers to call upon to provide this additional volunteer support.
We have also consulted the choirs, bands and other artists booked to perform at the festival. The vast majority feel unable to take part because they have not been able to have any practice or rehearsal for over a year, and in fact it does not seem that rehearsals are permitted until Step 4 which is after the festival week. It is apparent that any attempt to proceed with the festival could lead to some performances which are not of their best due to lack of preparation and rehearsal. This is not fair on our audience, and certainly not fair on the reputation of our performers and the festival itself.
Accordingly, it is with the greatest reluctance that the festival committee has reached the conclusion that the Waterlooville Music Festival must be postponed for another year.
If you hold tickets purchased in 2020 they will be valid for the same festival day and performance in 2022 that was planned when you purchased them. You have the advantage of first priority and certainty of booking, and at the price you have paid.
We are very grateful to everyone who has retained the tickets they purchased in 2020, this is a great help to us as it avoids us incurring unnecessary credit card fees through refunds and then re-bookings. It also gives us the reassurance of having ticket sales confirmed for next year. But you still have the option of applying for a full refund at any time up until 2 weeks before the festival start date.
The revised festival dates are therefore as follows:
Saturday 11th June 2022 – (postponed from 12th June 2021) – Hampshire County Jazz Bands (free daytime concert)
Sunday 12th June 2022 – (postponed from 13th June 2021) - AChoired Taste
Tuesday 14th June 2022 – (postponed from 15th June 2021) – Portsmouth Military Wives Choir
Wednesday 15th June 2022 – (postponed from 16th June 2021) – Horndean Band
Thursday 16th June 2022 – (postponed from 17th June 2021) – All that Malarkey
Friday 17th June 2022 – (postponed from 18th June 2021) – West End Jerseys
Saturday 18th June 2022 – (postponed from 19th June 2021) – Last Night of the Proms with the Meridian Winds
Also free lunchtime concerts on selected days during the festival week.
If you purchased tickets for the 2020 Waterlooville Music Festival, the options open to you are as follows:
OPTION 1.
As explained above, Waterlooville Music Festival is a community activity organised entirely by unpaid volunteers, and has been providing a fantastic week of entertainment in the town for some 15 years now. Postponing the festival has some financial implications, and if you feel able to do so, adopting Option 1 will be very helpful to the festival in potentially saving us further unnecessary costs.
Under Option 1, the tickets you have purchased for 2020 will be fully valid for the equivalent evening concert in June 2022. This means the 2020 tickets that you have already purchased are secured ahead of anyone booking next year should concerts sell out, and you will still benefit from 2020 prices should the Festival Committee decide that any price increases are necessary next year.
To take up option 1, you need do nothing. If you change your mind, or the 2022 dates turn out to be inconvenient to you, you can still obtain a full refund by following Option 2 at a later date. Your money is safely retained on a Paypal account.
OPTION 2.
Request a full refund by emailing us at wmf@stgeorgesnews.org
Please quote your Booking Reference number. If you want refunds on only some of the tickets purchased under the quoted Booking Reference number, please make clear which tickets you want refunded, and which ones you want to keep. If you have purchased a Passport, we can only refund the entire passport purchase, sorry we cannot split the passport so that you retain only some of the tickets it will contain.
We are out of time for refunding to the credit or debit card that your originally used, so refunds will need to be processed to a Paypal account. If you do not have one, you will need to create one. If this is difficult we will discuss alternative ways of getting the refund to you.
This option will be available until 2 weeks before the start of the 2022 festival.
Please allow 7 days for your request to be processed.
If you have any queries, please email us at wmf@stgeorgesnews.org
Once again, we are sorry for the disappointment this will cause, but are sure you will understand that this decision was unavoidable.
Our heartfelt thanks to the overwhelming majority who are taking Option 1 and retaining their tickets for next year. It helps us a lot and we really appreciate it.
Use the menus at the top of the page to view the Waterlooville Music Festival 2022 programme. Other than for the odd daytime event, all of the programme is booked and confirmed.
