Weather and insufficient funds blamed for failed festival

In a lengthy statement, Director of Gwên Community and Regeneration CIC, Richard James said of the cancellation that he “accepted that the decision has been made very late, too late, and in hindsight better decisions could have been made.”

“However, at the time, under the circumstances, cancellation seemed the only viable option.”

Mr James said that the cancellation decision was made “based on difficulties on the build, caused by the weather making the ground very soft and delaying the site build. 

He added: “The weather was not the only contributing factor, it simply made matters worse. 

“There were also other contributing factors, one being we did not have the funds to complete the festival, especially with the added costs incurred as a result of the difficulties faced during the build.”

Headline artists, including rapper Example had previously turned to social media to say they were withdrawing from the festival citing poor communications from the organisers and non-payment.

Mr James said that while the previous year’s event had received grant funding from Kidwelly Community Hub CIC and Kidwelly Town Council, “this year was operated solely by Gwên Community and Regeneration CIC, entirely self funded with no grant funding, with no funding available from last years festival.”

“Whilst discussions were held over a grant application, this was not followed up and the festival remained self sustaining.

“Whilst the difficulties of the festival were going on, negotiations with artists, management, funders and contractors were going on right up until the announcement to make this work, everyone involved tried to get this over the line.”

Mr James said Directors acknowledged the “disappointment, frustration and anger” with the cancellation decision and as a result, fellow director and Labour County Councillor for Kidwelly, Crish Davies was standing down from her directorship of Gwên Community and Regeneration CIC.

Richard James said he would continue as a director to oversee “the refund of tickets to ticket holders, refund of trader pitches to the traders, and payments of any outstanding payments due”.

He added that “the event has been cancelled on Eventbrite and refunds are being issued through the Eventbrite System”.

“All traders will be refunded their trade pitch fee within 7 days of the cancellation of the festival.”

This may not be the end of the festival, however with Mr James teasing that there may still be another event, adding that “a decision will be taken as to whether Gwên Gwen will continue beyond this year.”

Swansea Bay News has contacted Cllr Crish Davies to ask if she planned to continue in her role as County Councillor following her resignation as director from Gwên Community and Regeneration CIC.

Lead image: Last year’s Gwên Gwen Festival (Image: Swansea Bay News)