Herefordshire's Nozstock festival to end after 26 years

A popular Herefordshire music festival will end in 2024 after 26 years, organisers have announced.

The final ever Nozstock will take place at a farm near Bromyard between 18 and 21 July.

Organisers said the "financial risk" of the event was becoming too great, due to losses linked to the Covid pandemic and cost-of-living crisis.

Run by the Nosworthy family, the festival had started as a barbecue event at the family's farm in 1998.

In an announcement posted on the event's website on Tuesday, organisers said they wanted to thank all those involved for their support over the years.

Ella Nosworthy said the family had to make some "hard decisions" over the festival's future, but calling it a day felt like the "right decision".

"Sadly we are announcing that Nozstock 2024 is going to be the final one," she told BBC Hereford and Worcester.

She said the pandemic had a "huge effect" on entertainment events and venues across the country and it had been "hard to recover".

She added: "And then we've gone straight into a cost-of-living crisis and the financial risk is just becoming too much.

"Costs have doubled across the whole site and ticket prices can't double in-line with that."

The independent festival has hosted live music, comedy and family entertainment each year, with crowds of up to 5,000 people in attendance.

Ms Nosworthy said the team wanted to "go out on a high" on their own terms, rather than "compromise" the festival they had "always known and loved."

"Ultimately, we don't want to ruin something that we hold really dear in our hearts," she said.

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