"Heaviest summer rains on record" push event back by 7 weeks 

Site of Special Scientific Interest must be protected, say landowners and authorities
 
NEW DATES OF 21, 22, 23 SEPTEMBER ANNOUNCED
 
"It's been a gut-wrenching summer so far, but we're now working to make it even better on the new date", say organisers
 
Festival to become last of the season – will it be greeted by an Indian summer?

  
Message from the organisers.
 
This is, as you might imagine, a difficult bulletin to write and send out to you all. We’re sitting in the Playgroup office above The Blind Tiger Club in Brighton, listening to the typing tap of disappointing news and the solid beat of the rain that’s caused it.
 
Despite the best possible efforts, of a lot of good people, we are being forced to postpone the third Playgroup Festival, by seven weeks, because of the effects of the last four months of heavy rain on our festival site. We really have been given no choice.
 
The new festival dates are 21, 22, 23 September 2012, at the same estate of Eridge Park.
 
All tickets sold are valid for the new dates – we hope you can still join us for the greatest little festival around, just a little bit later than any of us expected.
 
In the middle of a really terrible season for a lot of outdoor events, we know how important it is to explain everything, and to treat you as an intelligent crowd, worthy of honest, open and detailed communication. So this is a long bulletin, because we think you might want or need to know the whole story behind-the-scenes.
 
This bulletin aims to explain to you all:
Why we’ve been instructed by the landowners and authorities to postpone the event, and why normal wet weather festival precautions are no longer enough at this special site
 
What to do if you can’t make the new dates, to ensure you get a full refund on any tickets you’ve bought and want to send back to us – and how sorry we are if you now can’t join us
 
How we need and appreciate all the support you give to Playgroup, especially at difficult and exceptional times like this – and how we’re going to be thanking everyone who’s bought a ticket with a free indoor party in Brighton on the original festival weekend
 
How we’re resolved to turn a setback into an advantage, and are working to make the third Playgroup Festival even better than it would have been – including adding new special guests
 
Why the weather really is a problem
 
Any of you living in the UK will know how bad the rainfall has been over the last few months. Together, April, May, June and July 2012 have seen the wettest start to a British summer since records began, according to the Met Office and the BBC.
 
The jet stream, that brings our summer weather, is reportedly operating at more southerly latitudes than normal, and the country has been lashed with almost non-stop rain for more than 12 weeks.
 
For most of that time, our attitude has been very much ‘let’s weatherproof the festival as much as possible, and carry on, hoping for some sun by August’. We made sure we had enough tented capacity for everyone on site, hot showers, and trackway to cover the main areas of human and vehicle traffic.
 
We knew that the bad weather was putting some of you off the whole idea of a festival this year – but we also knew that most of you wouldn’t really mind when you were there, and that Playgroup Festival has one of the most enthusiastic and hardy crowds going.
 
Ticket sales were slightly dampened, but not enough to derail the event, and overall we were set for about the same numbers as attended last year, and probably a touch larger. The party was prepared and, as always, in six years of Playgroup events, the show was set to go on, rain or shine.
 
We’ve never had to postpone an event before, and we certainly didn’t expect to do so this year.
 
We’d listened to all your feedback and all our own observations from the last two years’ events. We were ready with the best musical and entertainment line-up of any Playgroup event yet seen. Over 120 staff and performers were set to produce the cracking programme in the kids field alone. We’d booked many more toilets than ever before! And we’d designed a great new dance and electronica big top, with lots to do late night, once we have to turn the amplified sound down. All in all, we’ve spent a year getting ready for the best little festival in the country…
 
That changed over the last couple of days, following our most recent meetings with Eridge Park Estate, our site production crew, and input from conservation body, Nature England.
 
What many of you may not know is that our festival site is set within a massive country park of national ecological significance. We camp and dance on the edge of a protected Site of Special Scientific Interest. Eridge Park is teeming with rare natural life – it contains 60 species of birds, including all three British woodpeckers, 22 species of dragonfly, 167 types of rare lichen, and countless other examples of astounding and ancient flora and fauna. It’s one of the most precious natural sites in the whole country – and nothing can happen there without the support of Nature England and the landowners who are charged with protecting it.
 
On Friday, they removed this support, on the sole grounds that they have never seen Eridge Park as wet as it currently is, and there is no way to bring people and vehicles onto the parkland there without destroying the valuable soil below. And we would need to start bringing traffic onto the site next week, not just when the event was due to open.
 
The rains have been too heavy, and our festival site is now too wet and fragile. We cannot host Playgroup Festival and churn up a protected ecological site at the same time. To knowingly and seriously damage it would be against our philosophy, against the wider human and animal interest, and against the law.
 
So why the heck did you choose a protected site to host a festival on?
 
We chose the site because it’s beautiful and, in a region of imperfect outdoor event sites, it was the best we found in a year of looking, by a long chalk. Under normal circumstances, i.e. even vaguely normal rain, wet weather wouldn’t be a problem. This is a working, well-managed country park, where people live, farm, and host many outdoor pursuits, including a year-round campsite. We’d also held Playgroup Festival there for the last two years without these issues.
 
The worst rainfall on record, for four solid months so far, is a different story – it’s brought the outright cancellation of many summer events, from big concerts in London parks, to little festivals up and down the country. From both a festival organiser’s point of view, and that of experienced countryside managers, this is an ‘act of God’, that could not be defended against, or planned around.
 
This year, the rain has just fallen too hard and for too long. We have all tried, using every trick and contingency in the book. And now a postponement has simply been forced upon us.
 
OK, I understand that it’s been raining cats and dogs for weeks, that you have no choice but to postpone, and that it will go ahead 7 weeks later on 21-23 September. But I can’t make the new dates, and I’m absolutely gutted about it!
 
This is the thing we’re most upset about. We know that some of you can only make the original dates, we know that many of you have made plans with friends to travel from all over the world to make it. This is why we never normally postpone or change event plans.
 
Your effort and support for Playgroup events is what makes everything possible and is the whole reason we put them on. We know that dropping a stone like this has ripple effects in people’s lives everywhere.
 
We can’t stop everyone being bugged out about this, and we can’t make up for all the disruption and the disappointment. We’re sorry.
 
We can just try to make it up to you all as best as possible.
 
If you cannot come on the new dates, then we will refund your festival, parking, campervan, and kids’ tickets in full. The booking fees have already been spent on banking, postage and agent’s commissions – the festival doesn’t receive a penny of them. However, we’re going to refund them in full too, out of our own pockets.
 
To apply for a full refund and to cancel your place at Playgroup Festival 2012, please e-mail [email protected]
with your booking reference, if you bought through our website.
 
If you bought through any other means, or you wish to speak with us about any of this, please e-mail [email protected]where one of us will get back to you personally.
 
You will need to send back any physical tickets that you have received by post, because they will remain valid for the new dates, but Gigantic operate a fully staffed national ticket office and are ready to help at every step of the way.
 
Refunds are available until the end of the month – 31 July 2012.
 
We are also planning a three-day live music and arts party at The Blind Tiger Club in Brighton, for the original festival dates, which will be free entry to everyone who’s bought a festival ticket. It will star some of the artists playing at the festival, and we hope that for every one of you who’s geared up for a party, we’ll still be able to show you a great, albeit different, time. It’s just an extra way of saying sorry for the postponement.
 
If you’re still unhappy, please call our office on 01273 688869, or e-mail us on [email protected]- we really want to do our best by every one of you and we’re here to talk and help. 
 
OK, I can make the new dates, but I want to know why will it be different in September if it stays rainy – how can we be assured that postponement won’t turn to cancellation?
 
It would be even more meteorologically incredible if the rain fell for the next few months, as it has for the past few months. The jet stream effect alone stops being felt in England by September, so even if the year’s weather gets no less freaky, the rain shouldn’t be blown in from the Atlantic like it has.
 
A few weeks of just slightly drier weather will make all the difference to the soil drainage, and that is predicted to happen, by all forecasters, by the time we need to start preparing the site for the new dates.
 
However, to make sure that 21-23 September goes ahead whatever the weather, we are working with the Estate to prepare both the parkland that we used last year – and, as a back up, another area nearby, as a failsafe location. That back up area simply isn’t available to us any sooner, should we have to use it. 
 
OK, I’m keeping my tickets, I’m going to be there on 21-23 September and I’m ready for the best little festival around!
 
This is the response that we’re hoping most of you will have – it’s the indomitable spirit that’s led us to have so many great events together. And it’s where our eyes and hearts are now firmly set.
 
For every one of you who has bought a ticket to Playgroup Festival 2012, and hasn’t sent back their tickets and asked for a refund by 31 July, we’re going to reward each and every one of you with some special thank you surprises.
 
This has all happened rather fast, and we’ve been rolling with changes imposed upon us, so we’re going to keep the details under wraps for this bulletin. But if you can keep the faith in our little festival, we, as the organisers, promise to repay you tenfold.
  
Yours faithfully

Declan and Philip and the whole Playgroup team