The English festival « Reggae in the Park » has been cancelled! The ups and downs of one of the biggest reggae events held for 20 years in England have finally ended badly with the outright cancellation of the festival, announced yesterday by the organisers.
The festival was due to bring together at Victoria Park on Sunday a fine line-up of artists including the veterans Freddie McGregor, Gregory Isaacs, Marcia Griffiths, Barrington Levy and the Mighty Diamonds. Also on the bill were Sizzla and Vybz Kartell, to whom Capleton was reportedly to be added.
The latter have been the target for over a month of gay activists (see Reggaefrance’s article) and in particular of the organisation Outrage!, which campaigned to cancel the appearance of these artists or at least to guarantee performances free of any homophobic remarks.
We learned last week that the event would be moved to Wembley Arena, then yesterday that the venue had refused to host the festival. « Because of the very recent negative publicity concerning reggae in the British press, no other venue could be found that would accept the perceived security risk represented by Reggae in the Park », the organisers announced yesterday.
For his part, Peter Tatchell of Outrage! explains that « at no point did Outrage! ask for the festival to be cancelled ». « We are sorry to learn of the cancellation of the event as a whole », he added.
Whatever the case, it is very sad news for reggae, even if the organisers promise a 2005 edition in London.
Source: http://www.reggaeinthepark.co.uk