Durham's BRASS Festival latest big event cancelled due to Covid-19

Durham’s popular BRASS Festival is the latest large-scale event to be cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
A member of Back Chat Brass entertaining the crowds at a previous BRASS Festival.A member of Back Chat Brass entertaining the crowds at a previous BRASS Festival.
A member of Back Chat Brass entertaining the crowds at a previous BRASS Festival.

Durham BRASS was due to take place across County Durham this summer, with ten days of live gigs, open air concerts, street parties and school performances set to entertain people of all ages between July 10 and 19.

Organiser Durham County Council has been closely following Government guidelines in response to the pandemic and is regularly reviewing its 2020 festival and events programme as the situation evolves.

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This week, the local authority made the regrettable but necessary decision to cancel BRASS.

The decision follows the cancellation of a number of other council-run events,

including Bishop Auckland Food Festival, Durham Adventure Festival and Seaham Food Festival.

Last year, more than 40,000 people experienced Durham BRASS, boosting the county’s economy by hundreds of thousands of pounds and introducing new audiences to 21 st century brass music from around the world.

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Coun Joy Allen, the council’s Cabinet member for transformation, culture and tourism, said: “BRASS has been delighting audiences of all ages for more than a decade and has helped put County Durham on the cultural map, so we are sorry it can not go ahead this year.

“It is vital we follow the Government’s social distancing guidelines and our main priority is the health our communities, visitors, musicians, partners, sponsors, festival staff, and volunteers.

“BRASS is all about bringing people together, both in terms of our international line up of musicians and our wonderful Big Brass Bash parties. Sadly, this is just not possible this year.”