Why we axed festival (From Gazette)

Why we axed festival

12:09pm Thursday 29th September 2011 in Essex County Cricket Club news

SOUTHEND Cricket Festival is to be axed after 105 years in the town.

And Essex County Cricket Club chief executive David East has revealed their members played a big role in the decision to axe the popular event.

The annual Garon Park festival will not be held next year, with the two matches played during the week being staged at Chelmsford instead.

But the Colchester festival survived the cull following an extensive review of the club’s two festivals.

And the positive feedback they have received from their members on Colchester’s festival week played a crucial role in them electing to retain the Castle Park event, according to East.

He said: “We undertook a review of both festivals and the consensus that came through from our members — having discussed it with many — was both that there’s a shortage of cricket in Chelmsford in August and the Colchester festival is held in very high regard.

“We’re a members club — we’re listening to what our members want and they wanted the Colchester festival to carry on.

He added: “We’ve been playing festival cricket in Southend for 105 years and we’ve not taken the decision lightly.

“Many things were taken into consideration and there were some very robust arguments in retaining the Southend festival.

“It was not a financial decision and the fact that we’re bringing cricket back to Chelmsford in August was based on the feedback we received from our members.”

East said the Colchester festival serves both north Essex and the East Anglia area and attracts a number of visitors every year from areas such as Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire.

“It has a very broad role, in terms of the spectators it attracts,” the chief executive added.

“We know that 2012 is going to be an extremely tough financial year and we will have to try very hard to balance the books.

“There’s a lot of work to be done but we’ll endeavour to maximise the Castle Park festival, as we will all of our cricket.” The loss of Southend follows the decision to axe the Ilford festival in 2002 in favour of the Southend event, which was held at Southchurch Park at the time.

Colchester’s festival is the sole survivor and will feature the only Essex first XI matches not to be played at the Ford County Ground in 2012.