A previous Keswick Mountain Festival

Keswick Mountain Festival will not take place next year, organisers said.

The festival team said the event will take a year off, to safeguard its longer-term future.

Spiralling costs, the squeeze on household budgets and general current economic conditions led organisers to conclude a festival in 2023 would incur an unsustainable loss, putting the continuing event in jeopardy.

Organisers said they believed it was more prudent to have a fallow year and then come back ‘bigger and stronger’ in 2024.

Festival director Nicola Meadley said: “This has been a really difficult decision for us to take.

“We have looked at various scenarios to try and run the full festival as usual in 2023, but sadly, we drew the conclusion that pushing on and crossing our fingers for the best is too great a risk for everyone involved.

“Simply passing on our increasing costs to visitors and exhibitors is not the way that we want to go. Meanwhile, unlike some other events, we don’t get financial help from local authorities, which is disappointing.

“In these circumstances, we would rather take this hard decision now, than take a chance and find ourselves in an untenable position in the lead up to the festival weekend. Not only would that put the whole future of the event at risk, it would also cause economic pain to our suppliers and exhibitors, and to the local business community, all of whom are important and much valued festival partners.

“We know that our brilliant festival goers will be disappointed and we will really miss welcoming them to Keswick in 2023, but we also hope that they understand.”

The Covid-19 pandemic forced the abandonment of the Keswick Mountain Festival in 2020, with the event returning in 2021.

The festival team said it will work with Mountain Run to stage a KMF trail running weekend in May 2023. More details will be posted in October, they said.