The Guardian13 Jun 2026Macro
Automatically composed with AI from the cited sources
The first Womad festival in Glasgow was cancelled last week because of low ticket sales, taking the UK’s 2026 festival cancellations to 20. In April, the not-for-profit Where It All Began postponed its launch on the old Secret Garden Party site in Cambridgeshire after raising £180,000, pointing to a 10–15% rise in infrastructure and transport costs since the Iran conflict began; Red Rooster in Suffolk went into liquidation in May. The Association of Independent Festivals said the 20 closures so far this year remain the lowest annual count since before the pandemic, down from 43 in 2025, 78 in 2024, and 36 in 2023.