COMMENT
19th October 2010
Future of Keyboard Festivals & Keyboard Breaks In Doubt
It seems that the current financial climate is having an effect on organ-keyboard festivals.
Two festivals have recently disappeared through no fault of the organisers. The Hayling Island Holiday resort has gone into administration and the Sand Bay October Keyboard Festival has been taken off the list of the 34 events that exist this year (2010).
Although the number of guests at the Sand Bay event matched the previous Lyme Bay venue, where the site is now owned by Tesco, it was below the figure to make it viable for the future. Martyn's Leisure Breaks, owners of the Sand Bay Leisure Resort, state that it is more profitable for them to hold their conventional cabaret events - especially with the higher bar takings. They will therefore not hold any more keyboard holiday breaks around the month of October.
It so happens that this suits festival producer, Cled Griffin, who planned to end his thirty year run with the last event. However, the future is spoilt by those jumping on the festival bandwagon - bearing in mind that recently there were three events on one weekend!
The weeklong festivals at Pakefield and Blackpool are also suffering in attendance numbers, not only because of the financial situation, but because enthusiasts are passing away with no younger ones replacing them.
We predict that there will be no festivals in the year 2012/ 2013 (as we now know them) - and this seems to be supported by what is predicted on the Internet relating to that time when our earth crosses an equator in the heavens.
So don't save for a rainy day - because that day is here now. Make the most of life and enjoy yourself, because if you believe what is predicted for 2013, money, as we know it, will be of no value anyway.
More details about Sand Bay Keyboard Events
13th November 2010
Since the above item was written, it has been reported that Pontin's has gone into administration - see our NEWS page.
Basically it means that the banks have no faith in Pontin's and won't lend them money to help their cash flow, as they did last year. We are now wondering if our prediction will happen before the year we mentioned - 2012?
News from Keyboard Cavalcade
in order to complete the picture, and in the interests of fair reporting, we give below a link to the Keyboard Cavalcade website on which there is a Stop Press report, which, we have just happened to come across:-
www.keyboard-cavalcade.co.uk/stop_press.htm
