Singing the blues as festival is axed
Mar 20 2008 by Neil Mckay, The Journal
THE end of the road has arrived for one of the North’s most popular music festivals.
Organisers of the Stanley Blues Festival, a free bash which has attracted crowds of up to 15,000 to the former County Durham mining town, announced last night that a lack of funding meant it was being discontinued.
The local authority, Derwentside District Council, has been the principal funder, but a local government shake-up means the council will be abolished to make way for a unitary authority next year, and the money cannot be guaranteed.
Held every August since 1993, the festival on a field behind the old King’s Head pub has seen musicians of the calibre of former Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor, ex-Fleetwood Mac Peter Green, and singer Paul Jones.
One of the organisers, freelance photographer Paul Green, 40, from Consett, said: “The blues festival is a free event and, despite its popular success, it has become increasingly difficult to find the funding needed to keep it going.
“It has become more and more expensive to stage and we have reached the point where we have exhausted all the possibilities for fundraising. There is a lot of goodwill for the festival, but we need more than that.”
Mr Green said this year’s festival had been cancelled and added: “It won’t be held again.”
Co-organiser Mary Kearney said: “This has been a hard decision to make and I’m sure that it will come as a big disappointment to many people. We are proud to have organised the blues festival over the past 15 years and to have brought so many great musicians to perform in Stanley.”
Mr Green added: “We would like to pay tribute to the team who have worked tirelessly over the years. We set out to make an event that would give local bands a platform and we have stuck with that aim over 15 years.
“Along the way we have created an internationally-known festival that puts the town on the map for all the right reasons. We would like to thank those who have supported it, particularly all the local people who have been the festival’s biggest fans.”
Alex Watson, leader of Derwentside District Council, described the end of the festival as a tragedy for Stanley, and for the region.
“We have been the principal funder over the years, and last year we supported it to the tune of £40,000, but we are going out of business in 2009.
“That leaves us in no position to guarantee any more funding, which is a great shame for Stanley.”
