Another festival struggeling to make ends meet. Following announcements from Cambridge Club Festival and Sundown comes the news that there will be no Strawberry Fair in 2025.
In a statment on their website the organisers of Strawberry Fair say:
For fifty years Strawberry Fair has marked the beginning of summer in Cambridge. It is with great regret that the Strawberry Fair organising committee is announcing that Strawberry Fair will not go ahead in 2025.
This is due to rapidly increasing costs in recent years, which have not been matched by increased income, leaving the Fair running an unsustainable deficit.
The committee intends to spend this year reassessing the Fair’s business model and fundraising, so that the event can return in 2026. An online fundraiser has already been launched at strawberry-fair.org.uk/SaveTheFair
Committee Chair Liz Nathan explained: “The costs of running the Fair have doubled over the past ten years, and over half of that increase has happened since 2021. Every year the volunteers on the committee work hard to raise the money required, but last year was the most difficult I have known in over a decade of helping to run the event.
“We cannot keep continually increasing the fees that we charge our traders and bars for attending the Fair, because they are also facing increasing costs and there is a limit to how much they can afford to pay.”
Strawberry Fair was started fifty years ago as an independent, volunteer-run and free-to-attend festival, and the Fair has remained true to those roots ever since. No one on the committee is paid, and it is part of the Fair’s ethos that no one should have to pay to come to the event.
For those fifty years the Fair has largely funded itself through the pitch fees paid by the bars and traders who come to the Fair, supplemented by fund-raising throughout the year and by individual donations from the public.
In recent years Cambridge City Council has also included Strawberry Fair among the recipients of community and cultural grants, which has massively helped the Fair to keep going despite rising costs.
However since the pandemic prices have risen faster than these income streams. This is a problem being faced by many events across the UK, with many ticketed festivals being forced to cancel in the past two years, and numerous festival traders going bankrupt.
The Strawberry Fair committee is examining various means to raise additional funds so that the Fair can continue in 2026, but would also welcome new ideas from the Cambridge community: Together we can ensure that the Fair is put on a firm financial footing for the next fifty years.
If you have an idea to help the Fair, or would like to get involved, email chair@strawberry-fair.org.uk
Help us make sure the Fair happens in 2026 – donate now at strawberry-fair.org.uk/SaveTheFair
