Y Not Festival given £240,000 to help survive the pandemic

Y Not Festival has received the funds as part of the government’s £1.57billion Culture Recovery Fund (CRF) to ensure it has a sustainable future.

The festival has been a staple of the Peak District since 2005, providing music to crowds and giving an annual boost to many local economies.

It has recently come under new local ownership and has gone back to using local suppliers for more than 85 per cent of its contracts, having a new exclusively local trader’s area and is also rolling out a work experience initiative with Derbyshire schools.

The grant will ensure the festival’s survival for another year should the event have to be cancelled again and organisers hope it will give the audience and ticket buyers more confidence in buying a 2021 ticket, which is completely transferable to the following year or refundable in the event of cancellation.

Y Not festival will also use the grant to diversify the business and put on smaller, longer lasting, more Covid-resilient events for the local audience.

Festival manager Jason Oakley said: “The grant has come at a much needed time and offers us some security and a solid platform to finally be able to make some concrete decisions on.

"In a time where so many businesses are struggling to deal with an abundance of uncertainty about the future, we feel very grateful to have been lifted partially out of that and to have received this grant, which will fund our operating costs and allow us to diversify into some exciting new areas to make sure that we can survive even if the event can not go ahead.

"We can now keep Y Not Festival ready to go and able to be launched at short notice as soon as the world is ready for large events again.

"Hopefully this gives our customers the confidence that their tickets are in safe hands and that they have nothing to lose by purchasing one.”

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Nancy Fielder, editor.