Lowestoft First Light Festival: 24-hour arts and music event cancelled for second year

The First Light Festival attracted more than 10,000 visitors, including children who took part in traditional beach activities

A 24-hour beach festival has been cancelled for the second year in a row due to "uncertainty" over Covid-19.

The inaugural First Light Festival in Lowestoft, Suffolk was held in 2019 and attracted some 10,000 people.

This year, the arts and music event was scheduled to run on 19-20 June. It is hoped national restrictions can be lifted on 21 June.

Organisers said it had to be cancelled because there was "a lot of risk attached to it".

Co-organiser Genevieve Christie said there was "still a lot of uncertainty as we approach June" and the team "couldn't delay [the decision] any longer".

She added that they had many projects planned for the summer for all ages and the festival would "come back all guns blazing in 2022".

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The festival in Britain's most easterly town was co-created by designer Wayne Hemingway to help regenerate what Ms Christie called a "neglected" seaside town, and included films, readings, music, a community feast and a silent disco over the summer solstice weekend.

It had been estimated that it generated up to £1.4m for the local economy and Mr Hemingway said it was hoped it might be a permanent fixture.

Co-organiser Wayne Hemingway (second from right) behind the decks of the silent disco in 2019 with, from left, Nathan X, Smoothgroove, Richard Haugh and Tallulah Goodtimes

"It was wonderful and I think it will be again," Ms Christie said.

"Obviously everybody has to be very cautious so we're looking to next year to really come back with a festival that will be even better than it was."

She said the decision was also made to "ensure the resilience of the organisation".

"There is no insurance against Covid at the moment for events and so making that decision now actually enables us to be sustainable as we look to the future," she said.

Meanwhile, organisers of the Southwold Arts Festival have also decided that the event planned for June will now not take place.

A statement on its website said: "This has been an extremely difficult decision to take but we cannot afford to run our programme with socially distanced rules, and we cannot guarantee that these will be completely lifted in June."

Gilles Peterson performed a DJ set on Lowestoft beach once the sun had gone down

The straw and iron Pakefield Man effigy was set on fire at 02:00 BST on the Sunday