ONE of Oxfordshire’s biggest music events, Cropredy Festival, has postponed this summer’s event for a year.
The event, formally known as Fairport’s Cropredy Convention, has been taking place in the village, near Banbury, since 1979 and attracts 20,000 people each year. This year’s was due to have taken place from August 13-15.
The rescheduled event will take place at the same site from August 12-14 next year.
The line-up of acts will be carried forward. Highlights include the Trevor Horn Band, Clannad, Steve Hackett of Genesis, Richard Thompson, Matthews Southern Comfort and host band Fairport Convention.
Festival promoters are keen to describe date changes caused by coronavirus as postponements rather than cancellations, though, in practice, the lockdown means most will simply skip a year.
Other festivals to have ‘postponed’ include Glastonbury, WOMAD and the Isle of Wight along with local events such as Rewind, Henley Festival, Riverside and Towersey.
Festival Director Gareth Williams said: “We have no alternative but to postpone Cropredy until 2021. The safety of our festival-goers, performers, suppliers, crew and local residents must come first.”
Tickets purchased for this year’s event remain valid for the rescheduled festival, though organisers are offering refunds to those affected by the postponement.
Mr Williams said: “The postponement is a financial blow to Fairport Convention, so we urge everyone to keep their tickets and join us for a great weekend of music in 2021.”
The festival began life as a farewell concert by Fairport Convention. the band, who recently celebrated 50 years as a band, are still going strong and continue to release albums.
Organised by Fairporters Simon Nichol and Dave ‘Peggy’ Pegg and director Gareth Williams, it is a proudly traditional event with few concessions to progress, sticking to its tried and tested formula of one stage at the end of one big sloping field, with one long bar, and the same food stalls lining the sides of the hill.
Read more: Richard Thompson on playing Cropredy Convention
It has, however, branched out musically to encompass acts you perhaps wouldn’t expect to see at what is, at heart, still a folk-rock festival.
The three-day event is always opened and closed by Fairport Convention. Next year’s traditional extended Saturday set will include founder member Richard Thompson – widely regarded as one of the world’s finest guitarists. He will also perform a solo set of his own.
He will join the band for the 50th anniversary celebration of their album Full House, the band’s acclaimed 1970 LP.
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Thompson will join the original Full House line-up of Simon Nicol, Dave Mattacks and Dave Pegg – with fiddler Chris Leslie standing in for the late Dave Swarbrick to play the whole album.
Other highlights are expected to be producer Trevor Horn (who created hits for Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Grace Jones, Pet Shop Boys, Seal and Robbie Williams), ‘Woodstock’ stars Matthews Southern Comfort, Sharon Shannon, Turin Brakes, Richard Digance, Holy Moly and the Crackers, Bar-Steward Sons of Val Doonican, and Rosalie Cunningham.
“We’re really pleased with the line-up,” said Fairport bassist Dave Pegg.
“It consolidates Cropredy’s core appeal, celebrates Fairport’s rich heritage and also introduces a wide and diverse range of music. It’ll be a particular pleasure to have Richard Thompson playing with us again during our three-hour headline set on the Saturday evening.”
See fairportconvention.com
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