Covid: Boom Village festival cancelled amid rising cases

Boom Village was going to be held on the same site as the already-cancelled Boomtown

A scaled-down version of the Boomtown music festival has been cancelled because of escalating cases of Covid, the event's organisers have said.

Boom Village was due to be hosted at the Matterley Estate, near Winchester, between 11 and 15 August.

It was designed to be a smaller event than the usual Boomtown festival, which had already been cancelled.

Organisers said they appreciated the decision might seem confusing given the imminent lifting of Covid restrictions.

A statement on the Boomtown website said the risk of widespread illness and self-isolation would result in them not having enough people to safely deliver the event.

"The core decision is due to the escalating cases of Covid-19 across the country," it added.

Ticket holders have been promised refunds and the full Boomtown festival is expected to return in 2022.

In Winchester, 268 cases have been recorded per 100,000 people in the seven days up to and including 9 July. This compares with 154 cases the previous week. The figure for England is 339, which is up from 253.

Fifty new deaths were reported in the UK on Tuesday along with 36,660 new cases.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said the vaccine rollout had weakened the link between infections, hospital admissions and deaths, but that the pandemic was "not over yet".

More than 45 million people in the UK have received their first vaccine dose.

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