VAULT Festival have made the difficult but necessary decision to postpone the next full, live version of VAULT Festival until 2022. In consideration of the significant financial and safety risks brought about by COVID-19 and that each festival takes ten months to create, the organisers believe this decision is in the best interests of its artists, staff, and collaborators.
VAULT Festival is a celebration of the most exciting and boldest independent and grassroots artists, from all backgrounds, across all live performance styles. The team do not want to ask the artists to begin expending time, money, and energy in creating new shows when the risks remain so unpredictable in an already precarious industry.
As a non-funded, independent organisation, 100% of VAULT Festival’s income comes from ticket sales, food & drink, and fundraising. As such, the Festival doesn’t have the margins to be able to ride out a less-than-great festival, to implement social distancing effectively, and to protect their artists from exposure to increased financial and safety risks.
Founders Mat Burt and Andy George intend to use this time to restructure and reorganise the Festival to better serve everyone involved. They are using this chance to re-engage with the Festival’s purpose and interrogate its place in the industry. They will be working dynamically to generate live and digital opportunities for their artists, staff, and audiences throughout 2021. They will also be making big plans for the 10th Anniversary of VAULT Festival in 2022.
Festival Directors Mat Burtcher and Andy George comment, The prospect of not doing a festival in 2021 is daunting but our mission is now more important than ever. Our commitment is to continue working to provide an accessible platform that best serves our artists, audiences, and staff throughout 2021. We want to make our community, industry, and world more accessible, more inclusive, and more sustainable.
We’re grateful to the wonderful artists, audiences, our team, and the collaborators who’ve made the Festival what it is so far - thank you for your continuing support. We’ll be back, better, soon.
