Saxmundham Community Festival cancelled due to funding gap

Sax Community Fest, which started in the east Suffolk town in 2014, offers a range of tribute acts, entertainment and activities for locals.

The community event has been absent from the town's social calendar for the past two years, but returned in 2022.

Secured last year thanks to a £6,000 grant from the National Lottery Community Fund, the event is free-of-charge, but this year funding has gone to 'other more urgent economic causes'.

Sax Community Festival director Terry Barrow. (Image: Sarah Lucy Brown)

Festival director Terry Barrow said: "I have to report that, despite strenuous efforts, we have failed to get sufficient funding to produce a festival for this year.

"In this current sorry economic climate, funding - that we usually have been able to successfully bid for - has gone to other more urgent economic causes.

"Our funding streams have certainly dried up this year and our local grants have been cut back. 

"With the current cost of living crisis, we are struggling with the rising costs of the infrastructure putting on the scale of the event that the community have come to enjoy over the years."

READ MORE: 'We're so pleased to be back': Community festival returns to Suffolk town for 2022

Mr Barrow added that, while they explored the option of charging an entry fee, this would affect their funding as less fortunate families would be disadvantaged.

Hope is not lost, however, for the 2024 festival, as organisers are already planning a major online survey to provide "much more significant, quantified evidence" to support their funding bids.

"We need this to clearly demonstrate community needs and wants for a Sax Community Fest," said Mr Barrow.

"This research will start in June and probably run until the end of September - and we will set an ambitious target of 1,000 respondents."