Sign the petition to Save Our Festivals in collaboration with Music Declares Emergency
Save Our Festivals
UK festivals are part of what makes the British music scene great but they are under serious threat from climate and nature breakdown. Without music festivals our summers would be quieter and a little less joyful. To keep UK festivals thriving and protect them from the worst impacts of climate change and nature loss, sign the petition to Save Our Festivals.
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Rt Hon Lisa Nandy MP
Secretary of State
Department for Culture, Media and Sport
100 Parliament Street
London SW1A 2BQ
Petition to the Secretary of State for DCMS
Dear Secretary of State,
Re: Save Our Festivals campaign
We are the people who've spent our summers in muddy fields and sun-baked campsites; the festival-goers, music-lovers, who keep the UK's festival scene alive. We're writing because the festivals that have given us some of our best memories are under serious threat from climate and nature breakdown. And we're asking you to act before it's too late.
For many of us, festivals aren't just a weekend out; they're a rite of passage. That first taste of independence as a teenager, the friendships forged over a shared tent in the rain, the songs that become the soundtrack to a summer. If climate change is allowed to wipe these events off the calendar, future generations won't get that experience and that's something worth fighting for.
But it's not just about nostalgia. Outdoor festivals are increasingly being hit by extreme weather, and the consequences are felt by everyone involved. Festivals contribute £2.05 billion to the UK economy each year, supporting jobs for backstage crews, sound engineers, caterers, and countless others whose livelihoods depend on these events going ahead.
And it's about more than money. The UK's festivals are part of what makes British music great. For decades they've helped launch and sustain world-leading artists, and they're part of what gives "Brand Britain" its global pull. Lose the festivals, and we risk losing that influence too.
The scale of the problem
In 2024, seven of the 72 UK festivals that were cancelled were called off because of severe weather. That's nearly 1 in 10 of all cancellations caused by climate impacts alone, and that number is only set to grow as extreme weather becomes more frequent and severe.
We've already seen it happen. This year, LIDO Festival had to push its dates from June to August and reduce the event calendar just to protect the ground, after last summer's drought was followed by one of the wettest winters on record. Increased insurance premiums, last-minute cancellations, and difficult on-site conditions are becoming the new normal. Every cancelled or disrupted festival means lost income for everyone working behind the scenes, not just the headline acts.
It affects us directly too. If you've ever queued for water in blistering heat, watched a friend struggle with heatstroke, or trudged through a flooded campsite at 3am, you've felt the sharp edge of this crisis firsthand. As the Climate Change Committee's Well-Adapted UK report warns: “Increasing heat extremes may result in serious and potentially fatal health impacts for cultural events and their participants. Dehydration and heatstroke in summer are key concerns. Events may also be forced to postpone or cancel due to severe weather and flooding, affecting participants’ recreation, sense of community, and cultural identity.”
What we're asking for
The combination of climate change impacts becoming worse, the UK being dangerously under-prepared to cope with the effects of climate change, and the breakdown of nature meaning the UK is less able to protect against extreme weather events has resulted in a cascading set of impacts for UK music festivals. These impacts are exacerbating year-on-year and pose a direct threat to the viable future of festivals.
Extreme weather events, including floods and heatwaves, and increased insurance premiums are impacting the sector, adding cost through last-minute cancellations and difficult onsite experiences. Festivals are too important to our economy, our culture, and our memories to lose to a crisis we can still act on. We're asking you, as Secretary of State, to champion within the Cabinet the urgent need for new climate and nature legislation: legislation that locks in the protections our festivals, and the people who love them, need to survive.
Specifically, we're calling on the Government to:
- Pass the Nature + National Security Bill into law
- Put the UK's international climate and nature commitments into law, including the NDC announced at COP30 and the global goal for nature agreed under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework
And the petitioners remain, etc.
Yours sincerely.
