Yorkshire Dales Food and Drink Festival cancelled: What we know so far

Yorkshire Post

The Yorkshire Dales Food and Drink Festival had been due to take place at Aireville Park in Skipton from July 18 to 21 but was called off by organisers on Friday. It followed a week in which four acts – including celebrity chefs James Martin and Rosemary Shrager – had pulled out of appearing at the event. The event had due to be put on by a firm called Cocker Hoop Creative after after Events by B3 Ltd, the previous company which ran the popular event went into liquidation last year. Yorkshire Post business editor Chris Burn explains what we know so far.

Transcript

00:00Hi, Chris Byrne here, Yorkshire Post, Business and Features Editor. There's been a big story

00:04taking place in North Yorkshire this week, which has culminated in the cancellation of the Yorkshire

00:10Dales Food and Drink Festival. I just thought I'd talk you through what we know so far about what's

00:15happened. So the event was due to take place at Ayrville Park in Skipton in a couple of weeks'

00:19time. They had on the bill the likes of James Martin, Rosemary Schrager, Simon Rimmer, and then

00:25on the music side, The Feeling and Go West were due to perform. However, on Wednesday, three acts,

00:32including James Martin, withdrew from the event. One of those acts, Brutus Gold's Love Train, which is a

00:38disco performance, said that non-payment was the reason they were withdrawing. That was denied by

00:45the organisers who said that despite the withdrawals, they were still intent on putting on a successful

00:50event. On Thursday, Rosemary Schrager withdrew from the event and the festival organisers slightly

00:58bizarrely said that despite an on-the-record statement from her spokesperson, saying she

01:03wasn't going to be there, they still expected her to be at the event. On Friday, the event was called

01:10off. John Arrowsmith, the chap behind it, said it was cancelling with a heavy heart, but he couldn't

01:15see essentially how he's going to be able to make it work in time. And on Saturday, we, the Yorkshire

01:21Post, published a story saying that serious health and safety concerns had been raised with North

01:26Yorkshire Council about the organisation for the event. The organisers again denied that this was a

01:35problem. They said there had robust health and safety plans in place and that basically everything

01:43was in hand and that the cancellation had nothing to do with health and safety. That's where we're

01:47up to now. Obviously, there's a lot of disappointed people out there, traders, ticket holders, who fear

01:53that they're going to lose out as a result of this event not taking place.

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