News Item

Original 2012 Vintage Festival Plans Scrapped

Big music stars such as Nile Rodgers and Chic, Cameo, Alice Russell, Aloe Blacc, Sergio Mendes, Norman Jay, Lianne La Havas, Betty Wright, Snowboy, Buddy Greco, The Impressions, Junior Murvin, Lonnie Liston Smith, Smoove and Turrell, Craig Charles and many more have been scrubbed from this year's Vintage Festival.

Poor ticket sales forced the organisers to scrap plans for the full scale event. After a flood of publicity to announce their move to a stately home in Northamptonshire, “lower than expected ticket sales” has resulted in a move to part of the Wilderness festival site in Oxfordshire, and none of the main stage acts now appearing.

So Vintage Festival will no longer take place at Boughton estate near Kettering between Thursday, July 12, and Sunday, July 15. But instead, there will be an "intimate and authentic incarnation of Vintage," pegged on to the existing Wilderness festival over three days of 10th to 12th August 2012. People who have bought tickets for Vintage Festival can exchange their tickets or get a refund.

Two of Vintage Festival’s nightclubs, The Torch Club and Soul Casino, will transfer to a dedicated Vintage area within the Wilderness site. This will be the place to learn the dances, watch catwalk shows, visit art exhibitions and vehicle pageants or indulge in hair and beauty makeovers, hands on creative workshops and vintage clothing on sale.

A statement announcing the change said: “Following lower than expected ticket sales amidst a summer of much cultural competition and seemingly insurmountable barriers, we announce with our deepest regret, this year’s Vintage Festival is sadly not able to operate as a stand-alone event."

“However, a fitting alternative has been agreed with the organisers of Wilderness Festival who have offered to host an intimate and authentic incarnation of Vintage, as part of their own three day celebration within their Cornbury Park site in Oxfordshire.”

Wayne Hemingway, co-founder of the Vintage Festival, said: “Delivering something as ambitious as Vintage is a real challenge and there have been some seemingly insurmountable barriers, with economic and climatic hurdles being at the fore."

"However, we are resourceful and creative and with Wilderness kindly letting us “lodge” with them this year, the show still goes on.
In the three years since starting a concept with this breadth of content we have experienced hiccups along the way but have always triumphed in the face of adversity and still left thousands of people with wonderful memories of an uplifting weekend. We hope you will join us this year and help us create another magical experience.”

Tim Harvey, one of the Wilderness Festival organisers, said: “We are delighted to be able to open our arms to a fellow unique event in its time of need. We are lucky enough to know that this year’s Wilderness is firmly on course to be a great success and, for us, Vintage will be another spectacular addition to a programme already brimming with originality and ambition. It’s going to be a great honour to work with Vintage in making this ‘festival within a festival’ a genuinely inspiring alternative.”

The details for refunds and ticket exchanges are:
Ticketmaster, Ticketweb and HMV tickets - call 08444 999 999 or visit www.ticketmaster.co.uk
See Tickets - call 0871 2200260 or visit www.seetickets.com/customerservice
For more details on refunds and exchanges visit www.vintagefestival.co.uk

This year’s Wilderness festival includes a Future Cinema festival takeover of Bugsy Malone, long table banquets from chefs Yotam Ottolenghi, Valentine Warner and Fergus Henderson + St. John and a music line-up including Rodrigo y Gabriela performing with the C.U.B.A orchestra, Wilco, Spiritualized and Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings.
Words SIMON REDLEY