With weekly coronavirus figures for Wales still averaging just under 1,000, the festival committee have announced that there was “too much uncertainty regarding ongoing Covid hospitality regulations here in Wales”.

It’s been a rocky few years for the festival with the event, like many others, cancelled for the past two years and although last year they had been positive about staging a 2022 event, it was felt that for a non-ticketed event “so reliant on the support of local businesses and traders”, the risk with organising a summer event without the guarantee that limited restrictions on large outdoor events would not return was too much.

The festival committee said they were “obviously disappointed for everyone in the festival family: organisers, artists, suppliers, advertisers, and of course our amazing supporters and fans” and are adamant that they “will be back better than ever in 2023”.

This would have been the 39th festival had Covid-19 restrictions not forced the group into cancelling the annual event three years in a row.

The festival began in 1983 when Monmouth took part in the Wales Tourist Board Festival of Castles and it was then that Monmouth Festival was born.

After a number of years of being held in Agincourt Square, the decision was made to move the main stage down to the Blestium Street car park to cater safely for large crowds and the support businesses.

2019 saw the main stage cancelled for the first time following controversy over an attempt to move the focus of the event onto Chippenham to create more of a festival atmosphere.

The car park site has worked well for many years but did not allow them the flexibility to update and adapt and prevented them from setting up for the evening until after 6pm when paid-for parking ended.

The alternative venues of the Riverside Hotel and St Mary’s Church continued in 2019 but the festival schedule dropped from a nine-day event to a five-day event after became clear “a Main Stage, nine-day festival was no longer viable or supported” as certain nights saw a limited attendance.

The committee are very proud that throughout its history that “Monmouth Festival has remained a free-at-source festival”. It is organised and staged by volunteers from the community and funded by the “generosity of the people and businesses of Monmouth.

The organisers said that they will start planning the 2023 Festival in September and if anyone would like to be part of the Organisation Committee, email them at [email protected]