After 60 years, a music event is forced to 'bow out'

The family behind the Towersey Festival, which began in Oxfordshire, has announced that they will "bow out after this year".

They highlighted "economic challenges" posed by the Covid-19 epidemic as one of the reasons for their decision. Denis Manners MBE created the independent festival in 1965, five years before Glastonbury, to support roots and folk music.

The festival began in the village of Towersey, then moved to nearby Thame in 2015 before settling at the Claydon Estate in Buckinghamshire in 2020.

Organisers have pledged that the 60th anniversary of the four-day festival, which begins on August 23, will go ahead as planned.

Mary Hodson and Joe Heap, two of Mr Manners' grandchildren and festival co-directors, announced the festival's termination with the "heaviest of hearts".

They stated: "We have worked incredibly hard over the last few years to try to bring Towersey back to financial stability."The pandemic wiped out all of our backups and transformed the landscape of festivals across the industry. "Without investment partnerships or a fundamental change to the character of the festival, we have concluded that we will have to bow out after this year."

This year's event will feature a 1965 dance party as well as a "in conversation" gathering with some of the festival's first attendees.

The two added: "We believe festivals like Towersey are crucial for creating better communities and societies and for finding hope and humanity in an otherwise challenging world.

"We shall continue to battle and strive to realize our grandparents' and founders' ambitions and dreams, but it will no longer be through the Towersey Festival."