Bridlington Old Town Association "Devastated" By Festival Cancellation

Wednesday, 7 June 2023 17:52

By Matthew Pells

The organisation says it was let down and says members have received "disgusting" private messages on social media since announcing the cancellation.

The Bridlington Old Town Association say they were devastated to have to cancel this weekend's planned 1940’s festival.

The group announced via social media on Saturday that the event wouldn't be taking place, just a week ahead of the planned annual event.

Local Bridlington traders have since banded together to stage a replacement "Vintage Festival" which will be taking place on Sunday.

In a Facebook post on Wednesday the Old Town Association say:

"The cancellation was wholly due to a member of the committee, who was tasked and trusted to apply for the road closure and event’s license, as he had in previous years, each meeting from January he was asked and said it was done.

He failed to do this on time and by the time he admitted this to us and despite last minute efforts by the rest of the committee and fabulous staff at the Highways department at the East Riding Council, permission could not be granted to hold this event."

The association says it also wants to clear up a number of issues which have been raised in social media posts adding:

"To clear up a few points we have been accused of:

We had and have always had the correct insurances in place for this festival.

We have not received any grants for this festival, any sponsorship that was asked for has been withdrawn.

We were asked to hand over the traders list, via Facebook, because of GDPR regulations we could not do this.

Before we could even put out that we were trying to downscale and recover at least something, another event had already been arranged without anyone contacting us directly."

The old town association had also been accused of blocking some people from posting on it's Facebook page. The Association says:

"Individuals that have been blocked, is not because of advertising the new event, but because of the awful nature of the message, and certain ones that had also chosen to private message committee members.

Because we chose to get in touch with all our valued traders and entertainers first instead of leaving them in the dark we are being bullied and receiving private messages that are disgusting for trying to do the right thing.

We have organised this event and many others since 2010 and have never had to go through anything as awful as this.

We do however, hope this new event is very successful, and wish the new organisers, traders and entertainers every success."

The replacement Vintage Festival is taking place in Bridlington Old Town on Sunday (June 11th) from 10am with events taking place in local pubs and shops.