A POPULAR festival that was due to take place during the August bank holiday weekend has been forced to cancel, but organisers have promised it will be back next year.

Solfest was due to be held at a different site to what festival-goers are used to for the second year, however, the coronavirus pandemic means that organisers have been forced to cancel the event.

The news was announced to fans on Facebook. The post read: “Sadly, the time has come for us to postpone Solfest 2020. We had hoped to hold out until a Government announcement, but we have had an update from our licensing committee that Cumbria Police will not support any events until 2021.

“We are thankful to have been clarification on this. We will be sending out an email to all ticket holders in the next week to offer to move your tickets to 2021, or a refund.”

Sam Johnston, one of the directors of the show is extremely disappointed that Solfest 2020 won’t go ahead, but knew it was a possibility.

He explained: “The inevitable has happened. Because of the current legislation we had to call it off. We are hoping to have as much of the line-up from this year going into next.

“We would love it if as many people would hold on to their tickets as possible.

"We are a truly independent festival, we rely totally on ticket sales.”

Solfest is one of the few festivals that rely on local suppliers, just about every stage of the festival is supplied by someone from Cumbria.

Mr Johnston continued: “Just about everyone who works for the festival is Cumbrian or local, so it’s going to be a big thing.”

Solfest attracts visitors from the county and further afield so is a big tourist attraction, but now organisers have 14 months to work on next year’s festival.

“We’ve been looking at rearranging and tweaking things,” added Mr Johnston.

“This has just given us the extra time to come back bigger and better next year.

"We’re hoping to have an extra day of entertainment on the Thursday.”