The Lancashire Encounter Festival To be Postponed Till 2021
Jun, 2 2020
Sadly, we’ve all woken up to the reality of this nightmare - the corona virus pandemic. For the past few months it’s affected everyone, from how we live to how we go to work. Even the lives of our children are at threat.
Everything that we had planed on doing in 2020 has had to be put on hold. This has also hit the cultural sector of society. Almost every week we read about another event that has had to be cancelled and we live in hope that our favourite one might just hang in there.
The Lancashire Encounter Festival is a biennial event which comes to Preston City Centre every couple of years. It brings in many colourful and dazzling performance art displays and there really is something for everyone.
Unfortunately this is another one to be placed in the postponed pigeon box. Organisers believe going forwards with the event amidst growing pandemic concerns and heightened risks amongst crowds of people would be putting the livelihood of locals in jeopardy so they have therefore thus all agreed that a 2021 timescale would be more appropriate.
Leader of the city council, councillor Matthew Brown, expressed his fears for the event yet remains hopeful for next years plans,
“This has been a difficult decision to make, but in many ways it has been taken out of our hands by the ongoing uncertainty that we face as a city, a region and as a country”.
He continues,
“I’m confident in the teams and community groups and organisations across Lancashire that the festival in 2021 will be amazing and something we can all look forward to.”
The Lancashire Encounter festival was expected to take place between 18 – 20 September but has now been moved to 17 – 19 September 2021.
The city council says a ‘large amount of outreach work’ is needed to get performances ready for the festival and this has not been possible due to the restrictions of movement and gatherings.
A major arts festival for the city has been put back to 2021.
^Alex Ashworth CCG Art Blogger
