IT was such a great idea. Almost too good – which, without wishing to sound defeatist – is probably what did for it. When we heard, earlier this year, that a couple of Oxford Brookes graduates were returning to the city to stage a three day music festival in South Park, we were understandably excited.

Dubbed OxfordOxford, it was billed as a festival to celebrate the best our city has to offer. Over the course of the next few months the organisers drip fed us a smattering of details about their three-day festival of cinema, music and community activities, which was due to start this Friday.

Perhaps that drip-feeding was part of the problem, because despite the presence of such names as Klaxons, Katy B and local hero Gaz Coombes, it failed to gain critical mass and never really took off. A statement posted on the event’s website on Friday informed ticket holders that the festival was off and invited them to approach vendors for a full refund.

Artists booked to play found out at roughly the same time.

Our top stories

Most people’s reaction has been one of sadness mixed with a lack of surprise.

Maybe it was the timing – too late in the season for music-lovers, already cash-strapped after a plethora of local events, to think about festival-going again, and too early in the term to get students (to whom it was clearly aimed) onboard.

Then there was the muddled mission statement. Why was a festival celebrating the best of Oxford headlined by Klaxons – a band who hail from Warwickshire and South East London, and featuring another Londoner Katy B? Its day of cinema boasted such Oxfordian treats as Alice in Wonderland – but also, more bizarrely, sing-and-dance-along screenings of Dirty Dancing, The Goonies, Top Gun and Grease – which only really celebrate America in all its overblown glory.

Also serving to deliver the death blow were a combination of bad marketing and confusion over admission prices. It was all a little like a slow-motion train crash.

There is a huge amount of sympathy for organisers Eleven 11 events, who have come out of this debacle with their reputations intact; plucky music-lovers who just wanted to give their former hometown a fun weekend.

There should be less sympathy for their much-vaunted supporter, Oxford City Council, which gave them the use of the park and approved all licensing agreements – yet, despite its marketing muscle, seemingly made little effort to give it the push it so badly needed.

I hope OxfordOxford returns, possibly earlier next summer. And I hope local music-lovers get behind it. But if that’s going to happen it’s going to need not just a glittering line-up – but a lot more support from the people we pay to run this great, city of ours.

  • Do you want alerts delivered straight to your phone via our WhatsApp service? Text NEWS or SPORT or NEWS AND SPORT, depending on which services you want, and your full name to 07767 417704. Save our number into your phone’s contacts as Oxford Mail WhatsApp and ensure you have WhatsApp installed.