A TWO-day dance music festival planned for Eastville Park has been postponed for a year – just a week after winning an events licence.
Organisers of the Kinetics Island Festival cited uncertainty facing the “festival landscape” and time constraints as the main factors in their decision.
It had been proposed to hold the over-18s only event, featuring electronic, jungle, drum & bass and world music, over two days from September 21 to 22 this year.
A consultation was held in February over the plans, with a presentation at an online meeting, before a city council licensing sub-committee granted a licence at a hearing on March 14.
This year’s festival would have had a capacity of 15,000 people each day, on a site on the bottom half of the park, towards the M32.
The festival is the idea of Circular Productions, the team behind Bristol venues Motion, the Marble Factory and Document, and We Are the Fair, a London firm with experience of putting on festivals elsewhere in the country.
‘Festival landscape faces uncertainty’
However a week after being granted a licence the organisers issued a statement, which said: “As the festival landscape faces uncertainty and with time constraints looming, we’ve made the difficult decision to postpone our debut event to September 2025.
“This decision was not made lightly, but we believe it’s in the best interest of all involved to ensure a successful and sustainable festival for years to come.
“As we shift our focus to planning for 2025, we encourage you to make the most of your summer by supporting the vibrant events scene in Bristol. With venues facing closures and festivals navigating postponements and cancellations, your support is more crucial than ever.
“We extend our heartfelt gratitude to Bristol City Council for their support, as well as to all the teams we worked with to bring this project to fruition.”
The organisers said updates would be given via social media and added: “We appreciate your understanding and look forward to bringing our vision to life in 2025.”
They will also continue to communicate with residents via the community@kineticsisland.co.uk set up during the consultation, and are planning an in-person meeting before the 2025 event.
Previous festivals made ‘intolderable’ noise, council told
At the licensing hearing councillors heard from 15 Eastville residents with concerns over antisocial behaviour, loud music and the potential for violence, who urged councillors not to give permission to the festival.
Resident Michelle Dean told the hearing the noise from previous festivals Tokyo World and Love Saves the Day was “intolerable”, adding: “My front door was vibrating with the sound, and some things I had on a shelf fell off.”
Hazel Sutton told the hearing traffic during festivals was a “nightmare”.
However licensing solicitor Matthew Phipps, representing the organisers, said: “It’s perfectly legitimate for this park to be used, as it has been over the years, for large scale events.”
Licensing sub-committee chair and Liberal Democrat councillor Andrew Brown said the fact police had made no objection or representation over the licence application was “very significant” in their decision to grant permission.
Meeting report by Alex Seabrook, Local Democracy Reporting Service
Main picture – a map prpduced by the organisers shows the area of Eastville Park where the festival site would be