Music festival plans put on hold
An application for a licence for GemFest had been due to be decided on last week
Plans for a 5,000-guest music festival that would straddle the Herefordshire-Wales border appear to have been put on hold.
An application for a licence for GemFest, an “eclectic range of electronic dance music” over the weekend between June 13 and 16, spanning the river Monnow near the hamlet of Walterstone, had been due to be decided on by Herefordshire Council’s licensing committee last week (April 17).
The council has since confirmed the application has been withdrawn.
A similar application had been before Monmouthshire County Council in January, but was also withdrawn.
Despite this, the festival’s organiser, south Wales-based record label PullUp Recordings, is still promoting the event online, selling weekend tickets for £80.
Its website says the event’s location “is yet to be announced, but it will cover both England & Wales, in the Monmouthshire and Hereforshire sic areas”.
“We will be operating a shuttle bus service for a small fee from Abergavenny station,” it adds.
Festival organisers were approached for comment.
Longtown Group Parish Council had said policing the event would require “significant manpower”, access for emergency services both to and within the festival site would be “severely restricted”, and the music and crowd noise would cause “extreme nuisance to local people”.