Covid: Urdd Eisteddfod 2021 cancelled

The event is one of Europe's largest youth festivals

The Urdd Eisteddfod - due to be hosted in Denbighshire - has been cancelled because of the Covid pandemic.

The May 2021 event will be postponed until 2022 "for the health and wellbeing of its members, volunteers and staff, as well as the public".

The Urdd hopes to organise and stage an alternative, digital festival. Plans will be revealed in January.

The National Eisteddfod will decide in January whether to go ahead, after postponing in Ceredigion this year.

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The Urdd said the virtual Eisteddfod T event will be held during Whitsun half-term for children, young people and their families, following the success of this year's first-ever online version of the festival which attracted more than 6,000 competitors.

The Urdd Eisteddfod in Carmarthenshire will move to 2023 and Urdd Eisteddfod Maldwyn to 2024.

Centenary year 'a festival to remember'

Children and young people took part in a virtual version of the Urdd in May

Siân Eirian, acting director of the Urdd Eisteddfod, said there was "no real alternative" but to cancel next year's event.

"Under normal circumstances, very soon into the new year, schools, Urdd youth clubs and households alike would be busy preparing for the local and regional Eisteddfodau," she said.

"But the current restrictions in place would make it almost impossible for our contestants to prepare for these preliminary rounds, let alone stage them."

"I am fully aware of the disappointment today's announcement brings to the volunteers in Denbighshire who have worked so tirelessly, not to mention the children and young people who were looking forward to returning to compete on stage," she said.

But she added the 2022 Eisteddfod falls on the Urdd's centenary, making it "an extra special occasion".

Gwenno Mair Davies, chair of the Urdd Eisteddfod and Arts Board, said everyone was "longing" for the festival to return and that 2022's would be "a festival to remember".