Branchild launches crowd cover festival policy for 2021

The festival has announced a unique, innovative policy designed to help try and ensure its legacy in the event of cancellation as a result of the pandemic without government support or insurance aid. The festival, which is set to take place between the 6th and 8th of August, is thought to be the first of its kind to apply such a policy in the UK.

It will be closely observed by the wider industry as it encourages the audience to share the risk of running a festival under limited and difficult circumstances.

The statement can be seen below:

“You’ll probably have seen the devastating cancellations of Boomtown, Beat-herder & Shambala in recent weeks. This is because, despite the hardcore campaigning of the sector, our dismal government have refused to make Covid-19 specific cancellation insurance available for live events. 

This lack of insurance means that no matter how rosy the roadmap looks, if the absolute worst case scenario happened (e.g. a new lockdown or sudden change in restrictions that forced us to cancel in the days/weeks beforehand), we’d be unable to claim back the huge sums we had spent on producing the festival. 

Facing this stark reality, without support from the Culture Recovery Fund (see our 7th April post), we’ve been placed in an impossible position.

But we refuse to give up on the festival for ANOTHER year before we’ve tried our one last hope and lifeline: a radical, collective solution, only possible because of our size and the strength & values of this community…

We’re asking everyone who has tickets for Brainchild Festival 2021 (and who can make our August dates) to agree to new terms that mean only half of their ticket will be refundable in the event of a Covid-19 cancellation, and the other half is something new: a non-refundable ‘Crowd Cover Pledge’. 

This non-refundable pledge is the essential key we need to continue planning from this point on. This is our way of entering into a transparent understanding with you that if a Covid curveball forced us to cancel late in the day, we would only be able to refund half of your money, given that the other half will have already been spent on essential deposits & pre-event work.”

The statement can be viewed in full HERE.