2006 Cambourne Festival Marks End of an Era

The Cambourne Residents Association (CRA) have decided to end their involvement in the traditional Cambourne Festival after 7 years. Although the 2006 festival was enjoyed by all paying guests, not enough people attended to make the event either financially viable or fulfil its function of providing a social focus for the residents of a new community.

The Cambourne Festival was started in 2000 by Gerry Lambert, then Community Development Officer at SCDC, to act as a period in the summer where the new residents could meet each other and have fun together. The then newly formed CRA took over the running of the festival in 2001 and have run it up until the present day. The finances of the festival were that the consortium paid for the fabric of the event - the marquee, toilets and so on - and the CRA put on the entertainment. The consortium were willing to provide this money until they had provided a community facility, which ultimately was realised in the HUB.

When the HUB opened for business in early 2005 this left a huge dent in the financing for the festival - the cost of running the festival in total comes to about £9000, and about £4000 is for the marquee and the toilets - previously paid for by the consortium. In 2005 the CRA decided that running another festival on the meadow was too risky financially and ran the event in the HUB. While it was a sell-out, and associated events such as the 1st Beer Festival did exceptionally well, overall 2005 barely broke-even. We, and lots of other people, were disappointed in the HUB - it lacked atmosphere and generally the event felt flat.

In the light of this experience the CRA decided that for 2006 they would move back to the marquee format, in full awareness of the financial risks that this entailed. We did not believe that the festival had a useful future in any other format. The CRA has tried everything it can think of to raise money, but there appears to be no local body who would be willing to support it to the extent required, although the many smaller donations were gratefully received.

The net result for the 2006 festival is a loss of approximately £3500. The primary cause of this is the number of attendees at the evening event – there were 209 paying guests against the anticipated (and previously attained) 500. The reduced number of people led to a lower income from concessions. Also the Beer Festival was expected to make around £1500 to £2000 instead of the £110 that was actually achieved.

Overall the shortfall has made a considerable hole in the CRA finances, such that we cannot undertake another festival as we simply do not have enough money to cover it. However, given the dramatic shortfall in numbers, we would have to have seriously reviewed the future of the festival regardless of our financial situation.

This shortfall has left holes in other areas. The fireworks, for example, depend on the cash raised by the festival to secure them - they are not fully supported by donations. As this money is not available this year the CRA are unlikely to be able to do the fireworks without significant financial support and more people getting involved. The Beer Festival and Fete section of the larger Cambourne Festival are similarly at risk, but with these there is hope that another party can take them over and these events may continue.

We appreciate that people have a good time at these events, and would like to thank them in turn for all the thanks and appreciation that we have received over the years, as well as all the support they have given us. We would like to thank all the people who have put the effort during festival and fireworks. We would also like to thank our sponsors over all the years that all the events have been running - their help has been invaluable, the donations of goods and services have added a sparkle, and their money has helped the events survive so long.

AndyB, AndyW, Caroline, Clare, Karen, Les, Louise, Pam, PaulM, PaulR, Pat, Pete, Roger and all past members of the CRA.