19th January 2012
This year's Big Chill Festival cancelled

Organisers blame the London Olympics stating that it has impacted on "artist availability"

This year's Big Chill Festival has been cancelled, with organisers claiming that the London Olympics has impacted on "artist availability" for the event.

Organisers apparently considered moving the festival to another weekend but could not find a suitable alternative date.

The festival has been held in the grounds of Eastnor Castle, Herefordshire since 2002. Headliners last year included a wonderful and bizarre appearance from Kanye West dividing the crowd, Rodrigo y Gabriela stunning the crowd, Jessie J uniting everyone, The Bullitts with Idris Elba confusing us all and Robert Plant bringing a touch of the stuff of legends - see our 2011 review here.

Founded in 1994, the Big Chill began as a series of ambient parties at the Union Chapel in London, it developed into an outdoor festival in 1995. 2003 saw the rights to the festival brand purchased by Festival Republic who are also responsible for Latitude and the Reading and Leeds festivals.

I looked long and hard late last year at moving the date so it didn't clash with the Olympics but the mix of the festival fans desire to keep the date and an inability to find an alternative date that works I plumped for maintaining the existing weekend.
Sadly, the artist availability and confirmations we were achieving led me to conclude that I couldn't risk going ahead with the event as an outdoor event this year. Efforts are being made to look to bring a smaller event indoors this year with the anticipation of The Big Chill being back outdoors in 2013.
Melvin Benn

The Big Chill will be a huge loss to the festival circuit in 2012 - if you bought tickets when they were released as 'Early Birds' contact your ticket seller for a refund.

Be Ticket Safe® and avoid ticket fraud:
only buy from legitimate outlets, don't lose out to scams & ticket touts
See our Be Ticket Safe® section for more in depth information about how to protect yourself

Add feedback about "This year's Big Chill Festival cancelled"