Chelmsford Council 'hopeful' of RiZE festival replacement

Organisers of the RiZE Festival said it may return in 2020

A council is in talks with festival organisers in the hope of bringing back a summer music event.

RiZE, in Chelmsford, was set up in 2018 to replace the V Festival, which ran in Hylands Park, and in Weston Park, Staffordshire, for more than 20 years.

RiZE was cancelled in 2019 with Chelmsford City Council admitting it was not "widely successful".

The authority is hopeful of running another festival in 2020, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

New Chelmsford City Council leader Stephen Robinson said: "We are in negotiations and hope to announce something before too long.

"We are hoping to be able to run another music festival in 2020.

"It's up to the promoter to decide the running order and who is on the bill.

"When [we, the Liberal Democrats] ran the council before, we brought V to Chelmsford in the first place - we created V Festival 20 odd years ago."

'International artists'

RiZE was headlined by Liam Gallagher and Stereophonics in 2018. Its cancellation this year resulted in a loss of approximately £470,000 for the council, which also missed out on £38,000 in ticket sales commission.

Liam Gallagher was one of the headline acts at the 2018 RiZE festival

V Festival, which started in 1996, attracted international artists such as Beyonce and Foo Fighters and grew from a licensed capacity of 35,000 to 90,000 per day.

The last economic impact assessment study from Chelmsford City Council estimated that it benefited the local economy by about £8m a year.